Brown
by Skiewrites 2.0
Summary: Between befriending the naive humans, hiding his identity as an Altean and the struggle of schoolwork, Lance fights against the desire to leave Earth or stay with his family. Meanwhile, tensions rise in the McClain household as Lance's absence forces them to ask questions they don't want answered. Part 2 of All The Colours Of The Wind series, sequel to Grey.
1. September - Yellow

**OKAY, SO THIS IS A SEQUEL TO 'GREY' AND WILL NOT MAKE SENSE UNLESS YOU READ IT, SO PLEASE DO SO!**

* * *

 _Brown is a secondary quintessence, made of all three colour quintessence, Red, Yellow and Blue. It represents the understanding and the manipulation of the other quintessence relative to your own. the most common use of Brown quintessence is detecting another's core quintessence or hiding your own from another's view. The physical representation of Brown quintessence is magnetic fields._

* * *

 _"Okay, Lance, so today, we're going to be focusing on yellow quintessence."_

 _10-year-old Lance smiled at Abuela, who couldn't help but smile back. In her hand was a small yellow rock, one that glowed brightly illuminating much more than a single candle ever could. Telling Lance to hold out his hands, she carefully placed the rock into the young child's hands, watching as the stone continued with its light, though it weakened slightly now it was away from her quintessence._

 _"What does it remind you of?" She asked firmly, making sure to have Lance's attention as he stared into the heart of the stone. It was very easy to get lost in quintessence, especially ones like this. The young Altean frowned as he rolled the stone carefully in his hands, feeling as the quintessence pulsed like a strong heart, radiating a strong warm at a slow but solid pulse._

 _"It reminds me of Mama, but, calmer. It's like, like a calm breath, I suppose." Abuela smiled brightly at Lance, not that he noticed the praise, being unable to pull his eyes from the memorising sight. Despite the child's weak point in detecting others quintessence, he was very good at identifying what it was he could see._

 _"Yes, your mother has strong ties to yellow quintessence, much stronger than it is to red. You see, Lance, yellow quintessence represents the Earth, strong and peaceful, having the longest patience out of any of the other quintessences. However, it is the most stubborn and most set in their way, and can be the hardest to convince. You'll find it hard to take it head on in a short amount of time."_

 _"They would be a great friend." Abuela tilted her head._

 _"What makes you so sure?" Lance only smiled, his eyes never leaving the glow of the rock that he cradled in his hands._

 _"They be everything I'm not."_

* * *

Putting the last of his clothes into the assigned drawer, Lance sighed. He hadn't brought a lot with him to the Galaxy Garrison, just a few of his favourite clothes, his DS, phone and all the skin care ointments that he owned. He didn't even bring any books on quintessence, not with the high chance of it being caught, that and Lance doubted he'll even have time to study quintessence at the high detail he used to. But that was okay, because he was learning to fly, even if it was just cargo, meaning that he'll be able to go to space and help.

That's all he really wanted to do.

"Um, are you Lance McClain?" Turning towards the door, Lance came eye to eye with a tall, bulky teen. He stood nervously at the door frame, holding a duffle bag at his side, as if scared to walk in without permission.

"Yep. That's me!" He replied brightly, smiling bright enough that, if his face scales were visible, they would be glowing brightly. Despite not being able to see them, the other boy seemed to brighten up. Good. The other teen seemed more relaxed now, making Lance wonder how many times he had rehearsed that one line.

"Okay, cool. Uh, I'm Hunk Garett, I'm supposed to be your roommate and, uh…" Now he had gone back to awkward. Lance narrowed his eyes slightly, trying to see what quintessence the human had, something that was a lot harder to do in humans rather than Alteans, maybe it was the face scales that helped with that.

"Cool! I've taken the bed to the right already, so I guess the bed to the left is yours. I've just finished putting my stuff away, so I can help you if you need any help." The boy, Hunk, his name is Hunk, smiled shyly at him walking in slowly to put his stuff on his bed while he sorted out his clothes. While the boy's back was turned, Lance went to focus back on the quintessence around him. Man, he had forgotten how hard this was for him when they were all human and you hadn't grown up right next to them. Paulyne had got this straight away, she had gotten most things straight away, except for the primary quintessence, but barely anyone could use those these days anyway.

Except him, but no one really cared for someone who could manipulate your mind.

It took a bit of concentration, but it didn't take too long before sparkles of yellow flooded into Lance's vision, catching him by surprise. Sure, he was kind of expecting yellow of some kind, the teen really did remind him of Mama, but a pure quintessence core?

There was 10 different quintessences, five primary and five secondary. Most people had a mixture of different quintessences, like his Abuela with cyan face scales or his older sister Catheryne's muddy green ones, but Lance was the only one in the family, and the only one the family knew of, that had a pure core, with no influence of any other colour, just a pure calm blue.

So, the likelihood of him meeting one that also had a pure core, well, the chances were very, very low.

"So, what are you studying? I'm on the cargo piolet course, though I wanted to be on the fighter class but I got rejected from it." Lance attempted to make conversation with him, and, to his utmost joy, the other kid was okay with the conversation.

"Oh, that's cool. I'm on the engineer course." He smiled at Lance, and Lance couldn't help but smile back.

"Wow, you must be really smart, like, I saw some of the tests you needed to do to be accepted on the course and wow do you need to know a lot of stuff…" Lance began to ramble on about everything and nothing, but the Hunk didn't seem to mind, even expanded on some points, which is more than even his sisters ever did.

"I have an important question for you, Hunk." Lance suddenly stated seriously, changing the atmosphere in seconds.

"What's that?" Hunk was nervous again, his fingers suddenly fiddling with wires that he had in his pocket.

"What's your Hogwarts house. Mine's Gryffindor." Lance said in the most serious voice he could muster.

"Hufflepuff." Lance broke out into the biggest smile of the day.

"This is going to be a beautiful friendship."

* * *

Abuela: _How was your first day? Did you meet any new friends?_

BlueChild: _yeah my roommates called hunk_

BlueChild: _he has a pure yellow pure_

BlueChild: _how cool is that_

BlueChild: _i told you that people with yellow cores would be great friends_

Abuela: _You did. Don't forget, you're also there to study, although, it is nice to know you're making friends._

Abuela: _Don't forget to say hi to Catharyne, she wants to know what you're up to._

BlueChild: _i_ _wont_

 _Sent at 17:39_

 _Last seen 17:43_

* * *

Paulyne smiled as she walked into the kitchen, sitting at the table ready for dinner. Said table was rather empty now, because not only was Lance and Catharyne missing due to their studies, but half the adults too, leaving just five people at the table instead of the normal nine.

"Mama, when's Lance coming home?" Skye was innocent, only just started her druid training. A look was shared between Denise and Mama. Were they hiding something?

"We don't know." Mama muttered as she began serve the spaghetti. "But don't worry about that sweetheart. Lance knows what he's doing." She didn't seem to believe herself, but Skye did and went on to eat her food, not noticing the dark atmosphere that had settled in the room.

Lance was not a 'touchy' subject, something that most of the family now actively avoided, his words having split the family in two. Mama was worried he would actually go into space and leave them behind, Denice felt sorry for what she said, but by the looks of things she didn't regret telling Lance the things that she did. On the other side of the spectrum, Catharyne didn't talk to the family for weeks after she found out what they had said to Lance, having been told by Skye, who didn't really understand the fact that they may never see Lance ever again, especially being so close to the Lion. Grandfather didn't care, like usual, and Auntie Ashleigh had gotten into a full-fledged argument with Mama, something that had never happened between the two women. But, Abuela…

Abuela had stopped coming to dinner, instead spending more and more time in the 'barn'.

She was up to something, Paulyne could feel it deep in her bones, feel the odd way that the quintessence was feeling these days, feel how it was changing.

Something was going to happen, and soon.

Lance was going to be right of the middle of it.


	2. October - Brown

For as long as she could remember, Skye couldn't wait to start her druid training.

Like her older siblings, she had started on her 10th birthday, and like Lance, she was taught by Abuela, for while her core was purple, Abuela had more blue in her core than Mama had red, so it made logical sense for her to be taught by Abuela.

It also made sense since she didn't teach Lance anymore.

It was almost as if she was a replacement.

She walked into the barn, making sure to change into something much more comfortable, changing from her human form into her normal one, with long pink hair and lilac face scales, ones that almost mirrored Lance's in terms of length, but being much more thinner, as if drawn on by a thin pen. She smiled when she saw Abuela, who was meditating on one of the cushions in the middle of the room, and walked over to join her, putting a small box of cookies that Denise helped her make for Abuela onto the floor next to her.

They hadn't seen her eat since Lance left for the Garrison and she rarely came to the house anymore, avoiding the tension that was held in there.

When Skye had asked about it, people had just shrugged it off, never saying why Lance's absence was such a big deal. It hadn't been like this when Catharyne left, in fact, everyone was happy that she did get a place in Oxford. What was the big deal that Lance wanted to go to space, to help the people there? Sure, she didn't know the whole story, and she hated that. she hated that she was young enough for them to say 'when your older' as an answer to her questions. Didn't they realise that they said that to Lance too?

She couldn't wait to grow up.

"So, what's in the box?" Skye perked up when Abuela came out of her trance with a smile on her face and sadness and tiredness in her eyes.

"Cookies, chocolate chip ones." She stated happily, opening the box and offering one to Abuela, who shook her head in reply to the unspoken question.

"Maybe later." Skye frowned as she replaced the lid onto the box, careful to make sure each part of the lid was properly sealed to stop them from going stale.

Abuela better eat them later.

Skye doubted that she would.

She needed to talk to Lance.

"What can you tell me about Brown quintessence, Skye?" Skye took a moment before answering.

"Brown is a secondary quintessence, and it's about quintessence that is around you, relative to you, right?" A nod, so she was going okay. "And it is made up of the three primary colour quintessences, Red, Blue and Yellow, and is one of the more easier quintessences for someone to manipulate and-"

"What about the people with this type of quintessence core, Skye, what are they like?" Abuela asked, her smile never leaving her face, but her eyes were much more guarded, showing less emotion than before. Skye sighed, thinking. Nobody had ever told her what somebody with a brown quintessence core was like, and she didn't know anybody that had one, well, except Catharyne's, but hers was much more green than it was brown, so she wasn't a fine example of what somebody with Brown quintessence was like.

"Well, it would depend what shade of brown they were at first." She said hesitantly, expecting Abuela to correct her. When the older woman didn't replay to her answer, she quickly continued.

"Like, Brown is made from all three primary colours, so they would have some traits from all three. There's impulsive, reclusive and instinctive from Red; patience, stubbornness and inner strength from Yellow and loyalty, flexibility and welcoming from Blue." She paused for a moment, thinking of what she had just said. If they had a true brown core, then they should hold traits of all three colours, but-

"But that wouldn't work, there's too many contrasting personalities there." To that, Abuela smiled brightly, fiddling with a small brown crystal, no bigger than a ping-pong ball.

"The thing with Brown quintessence is that it attracts and rejects different things at the same time, and changes what those things are. To have a truly Brown core, you need to have multiple opposite personality traits, something which doesn't really work in practice. Because of this, you'll never find someone with a pure Brown core, but somebody that has a brown core that leans close to another colour. That is also why Brown quintessence is the only quintessence that is represented by an intangible force that is invisible to the eye, magnetic fields, rather than a physical object, like steam for Purple, or lava for Orange. Because of this, people will either find it the easiest or the hardest quintessence to manipulate and understand." Skye nodded her head as Abuela went on about the different uses of Brown quintessence, and she wondered whether Lance had found it easy or hard to manipulate.

She couldn't wait for him to come home, so everything could go back to normal.

* * *

(10:58)

Purple_Skye: _when are you coming home_

(12:39)

Purple_Skye: _lance_

Purple_Skye: _answer your phone_

(13:02)

Purple_Skye: _please lance_

Purple_Skye: _im worried about abuela_

(13:14)

Purple_Skye: _FOR GODS SAKES ANSWER YOUR PHONE!_

(15:47)

BlueChild: _jesus take a chill pill_

BlueChild: _I was in the middle of class_

BlueChild: _and you forgot about the time zone_

BlueChild: _wait shouldn't you be in class too?_

Purple_Skye: _when are you coming home_

BlueChild: _not for at least two months_

BlueChild: _whats wrong with abuela_

Purple_Skye: _shes not eating_

* * *

Lance looked up from his phone to look at the human who was slowly becoming his best friend, listening to the small tinkering noises Hunk made while he was building.

It was downtime, and neither of them had any homework that was due, which had surprised Lance, for he had thought that by now he would be drowning in assignments. But, it seems that the Garrison knew that homework wasn't really going to help them when they were in space, so the only thing they were really assigned to do outside of class was to read further into their studies and make sure to revise so they could pass any tests that came up.

That didn't make the courses easy; never before had Lance been stretched academically. This wasn't like his Abuela's teachings, which were one-to-one and on a subject he was born to exceed at. Here, not only was everybody starting from the same place, as they didn't really teach Pilot 101 in high school, but everyone fought to be here. All of them had to do to the exams, all of them had to study their asses off and work to the best of their ability to earn a place here. Unlike with Abuela, it wasn't one-to-one. It wasn't about the individual learning, it was about how good you were compared to everyone else, how you ranked against them. Unlike with Abuela, where he learned how to harness something he was born to do, something he was pretty good at because it was in his DNA, it turned out that he found flying hard.

It wasn't a different language, something that he found pretty easy after learning the right word order and listening to some songs in the same language. It wasn't quintessence, where all he had to do was sit there and focus on it until he understood how it felt, understand how it moved and learn how to move it. It was flying, where he had to focus on others under his command in the ship as well as his surroundings and the conditions he was flying under, then there was knowing where all the buttons were and knowing what they did, and that didn't begin to cover all the radio notations, the basic first aid and all the other formalities that came with a pilot.

Needless to say, he needed a lot of work to do if he wanted to go to space.

But that could come after he found out what was wrong with Abuela.

* * *

BlueChild: _do u no y shes not eating_

Purple_Skye: _idk_

Purple_Skye: _she hasnt been coming to the house eather_

Purple_Skye: _*either_

BlueChild: _youll have to talk to mama or densie bout it_

BlueChild: _im sure even paulyne would help_

BlueChild: _cause im not going to be able to help from where i am_

Purple_Skye: _ik_

Purple_Skye: _me_ _and denise tried to bake cookies_

Purple_Skye: _mama and_ _paulyne dont seem to care_

Purple_Skye: _its so tense lance_

Purple_Skye: _please come home soon_

* * *

Lance sighed loudly as he turned his phone to standby, and chucked his phone onto the bed near where his charger, causing Hunk to look up from his mini project.

"Hey man, are you okay?" Lance smiled bitterly at the human, pushing his hand through his human brown hair.

"Yeah, just some family issues. Nothing to worry about." Hunk frowned at his words, but since Lance didn't elaborate, Hunk let it drop. His quintessence still felt curious, but was patient, willing to wait.

Lance was glad he had a friend like Hunk.

* * *

 **FUN FACT - HUNK HAS A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY!**


	3. November - Red

The longer Lance stayed at the Garrison, the more his stomach would turn and unease would set into his bones.

Something was wrong.

It was already the start of November, only the third month of many at the Garrison, and yet it felt like he had been there forever. The charm of it being a new school in a new country, talking a language that he didn't grow up with, had long worn off, for while he did trip over the time zones when communicating with his family, or the little times he did over the last three months, or when he forgot a word of English – meaning that he needed Hunk to tell him what it was, the times between either event becoming longer and longer. The instructors no longer cared that he came miles to learn here, to go into space. The students had long settled into a repetitive routine of meals and lessons, studying and sleeping. Lance had long become used to sharing a room, and all his free time, with Hunk, who never left the room without some wires and a spanner. He had gotten used to the different quintessence from the other students, so much more brighter and colourful and different from the ones he had seen from home.

He had gotten used to not seeing nor talking to his family every day, although, in some respects, it was more a relief than a phantom pain. He had nothing to say to half of them, and he didn't want to start a fight with the rest. Skye texted him anyway, making sure to message (annoy) him over the internet rather than MSM, especially after Mama (apparently) had to pay CUC$25 for her phone bill the first month he was in America. Catharyne simply didn't have the time to text while she was studying for her degree, and Lance wasn't sure if she fully knew of what was going on. Mama occasionally texted hi, but it was awkward and impersonal, as if talking to a stranger on the train.

Every time he got a text, the unease in his bones would only grow.

He didn't know how to explain it; it was as if somebody was watching his every move, reading his every thought, judging his decisions and waiting out to see what he would do when life threw him a new obstacle. He was becoming nervous, anxious, and there seemed to be nothing he could do to drown out the feeling.

The worst part? It was affecting his everyday life.

"36!?"

Lance stared down at the paper in front of him. His latest test was back, and he didn't do well, as it looked as if red pen had just exploded all over his test, drowning out his scribbled words in black. He thought he was going to get better than that, as he had studied for the test days before, even getting Hunk to quiz him on chapters he didn't fully understand. The girl next to him, with a brown pixie cut with dyed blonde streaks, only shrugged but smiled smugly, obviously proud of the '51' that was written at the top of her paper, nearing the top end of the class' scores.

Lance couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous at that.

"Don't worry, you're hardly the lowest in the class." She said, pointing out the Lance the kids near the back, wondering at where they had lost their marks. One of them, a small petite blonde with glasses was even crying, not that Lance blamed her. The girl next to him (was her name Lauran?) followed his line of sight, the sighed sadly when she noted the girl's crying.

"And there she goes again." Lance frowned at the girl's off-hand comment, watching as she moved her fringe out of her eyes.

"Isn't that a little mean?" The girl (maybe Lynda?) shook softly her head in disagreement.

"She only wants a good grade so she'll be noticed by Kogane, who, like always, takes the top of the class." She (Lucy?) responded, starting to slowly pack up her papers into a neat pile, ready to be put into her bag. Lance nodded in response, still watching the blonde as she was comforted by one of her friends.

He hadn't seen much of the exclusive Kogane, famously known for his close brotherly relationship with Shirogane Tatashi, the famous Keroberos pilot, and his ridiculously high exam scores. He was dark haired, antisocial, had a resting face that made him look as if he was always brooding and looked to be a wanna-be emo, which of course made him number 1 on the girls 'Would Date' lists.

It wasn't very hard to be jealous of that.

"Yeah, I suppose so." Lance threw a last side glance at the crying girl at the back of the room (that was Hermione, right?) before looking back to look at the girl next to him (her name began with an 'L', he was sure of it).

"I don't suppose you're busy this weekend?" She stared at him blankly, her eyes baring deeply into him, making him think that maybe she could see quintessence too, and was watching the way that the Blue folded into itself due to the unknown feeling that was grained deep into his bones and caused his stomach to tighten, and not because of the question he had just asked her.

"Wrong team." She stated as she got up and began to leave the classroom, like many of their classmates were doing. Lance sighed as he stared down hopelessly at the paper in front of him.

Of course, he would ask the gay one.

* * *

Lance huffed as he walked towards where Hunk's classroom was, fighting against the crowd that was desperate to get the cafeteria and get the good food. Lance didn't personally care, he had had way too much of Denise's cooking and heard enough horror stories from Grandfather about the food that was served in the Galran ships and then later at the rebel camps for him to appreciate the semi-decent that was served here at the Garrison.

Hunk, however, didn't.

He would get into long, drawn out rants of the many, many ways of how the Garrison could improve the quality of the food, going into vivid detail of different spices, explain how different frying and baking was and even ways to make food from a low budget go a long way, something that Lance got when their only source of income would be the small farm they own and the pizza cabin that Aunt Ashleigh owned. It would always make Lance smile when Hunk went on one of these rants, as it was one of the only topics that Hunk was passionate about that Lance felt he understood enough to put his own two cents in.

Lance's stomach rumbled, making him look down at it sadly as he rubbed it, reminding him of the lumpy mash and the slices of unidentifiable meat that they were having for dinner that night, making him sigh sadly and almost wishing for Denise's food.

Almost, but he wasn't that desperate.

Yet.

Abruptly, Lance crashed into someone walking in the opposite direction, causing the both of them to fall down onto the floor with a thud, the crowd, now a lot thinner than before, walking around the two people sitting on the floor as they made their way towards their dinner.

"Why wasn't you looking where you were going!" The boy sat in front of Lance practically screamed at him, leaving Lance to scowl angrily back towards him. The boy's eyes were a startling purple, was he wearing contacts? Humans didn't have purple eyes. His hair was long against the back of his neck, curling slightly at the ends, hiding his ears from Lance's sight.

Lance had only just crashed into Keith Kogane.

Todays was just not his day.

He could just feel the anger and frustration roll straight off of him. His quintessence, bright, bright red, splaying off the core like flares on a star, flicking with life and fire, reminding him so much of Denise. No wonder he was an antisocial and reclusive, what with a pure quintessence core like that. Lance could almost feel it burn against his skin, as if it could do that in the first place, the intangible energies floating out towards the surrounds, yet staying close to the main core, as if afraid to get close and touch something.

What were the chances of meeting someone else with a pure quintessence core, let alone two?

"Looking where I'm going? How about looking where you're going, mullet-head!" Lance growled out, smirking internally when he saw Keith's face darken at the insult. He got up and stormed off, leaving the other boy sitting on the floor, stunned that somebody yelled back at him.

Who would have thought that 'mullet-head' would be that effective?

He sighed as he walked forward, brushing himself down, getting all the dirt off of him, making sure to take deep calm breaths as he walked down the now silent corridors.

He didn't get much further before his phone buzzed in his pocket. He had a new text message.

Huh.

Fishing out his phone out from his pocket and turning it on, Lance clicked on the first notification he had, waiting for the message to load, then began to read.

* * *

GrandmaDenise: _Hey_

GrandmaDenise: _So we havent spoken a lot_

GrandmaDenise: _Not tht i blame you_

GrandmaDenise: _*that_

* * *

Denise put her phone down as she looked outside of the pizza hut that her aunt owned, watching as the sea crashed into the shore, sighing as the water washed over the sand and went back to join the rest of the sea.

She missed her little brother.

He missed his questions, missed the way that he would look at the world in a new and bright and _unique_ way. She missed the child innocence that he seemed to have that the rest of them didn't have. She missed his desire to help, the way that he saw suffering, even when it was cleverly hid under a mask of smiles and happiness. She missed the things that he would point out, making the small world that she had grown up on so much more different than she first believed.

She was the older sister. Her job was to protect the younger siblings, to support them, to be the people they come to when they had a question, when they needed help, when they felt like nobody understood them.

She had known Lance for all 16 earth years that he had been alive. She had watched as he grew from the small boy with blue hair and bluer face scales that wanted to make everybody smile to the young man that had brown hair and no face scales who wanted to protect the universe.

Despite all those 16 years, Denise felt as if she knew nothing about him.

Every time she thought that she had him down, nailed to a wall of things that he could and couldn't do, he came though and knocked it down with a single bullet. He learnt foreign tongues as if it was a simple maths equation, ready to take down a harder one as soon as he had the previous one nailed. He's exceptional with quintessence manipulation, learning the both versions of Blue quintessence by himself, despite the multiple warnings of getting lost in the mind of others, or them being lost in his own. He studied and got into the Garrison by himself, without telling anybody of what he was planning to do.

He wanted to help the people who were hurting.

Denise couldn't find it in herself to be surprised at that one.

She was the eldest sister. She was the wisest, the one with the most experience, the one with the most knowledge of how the world worked.

She got the impression that Lance, the second youngest and perhaps the most innocent, had the most knowledge of how the universe worked.

She hoped that was enough for him to survive.

* * *

GrandmaDenise: _im so so so sorry lance_

GrandmaDenise: _i shouldnt have reacted in that way_

GrandmaDenise: _youve always wanted to help people, protect them, keep them safe_

GrandmaDenise: _that morning when you got the letter from the garrison, i was shocked. i didn't expect you to do that_

GrandmaDenise: _those exams are hard for a reason, they only want the best in space_

GrandmaDenise: _not that you arent the best, i believe you can do it_

GrandmaDenise: _…_

GrandmaDenise: _youve always want to help people, make them smile, did you know that?_

GrandmaDenise: _when papa died, mama was so sad_

GrandmaDenise: _and you were so young, not as young as skye was, but you were still so young_

GrandmaDenise: _you didn't know what was going on_

GrandmaDenise: _I gave you a flower to put on the grave, you know_

GrandmaDenise: _you didnt put it on the grave though, you gave it to mama to make her stop crying_

GrandmaDenise: _im the oldest_

GrandmaDenise: _my job is to be the leader, to make sure that everyone is happy with what theyre job is, to make sure that theyre happy and they know what their job is in life, to know their strengths and weakness and to tell them how to improve and how to live life according to the experiences ive lived through_

GrandmaDenise: _im not a very good leader lance_

GrandmaDenise: _ive got too much red, too much impulsiveness, too instinctive_

GrandmaDenise: _i havent got enough yellow_

GrandmaDenise: _im not patient nor do i have the inner strength of a rock_

GrandmaDenise: _youre going to do something that leads to something great one day lance_

GrandmaDenise: _if that means that you leave earth, then youll be leaving us behind_

GrandmaDenise: _but that's okay_

GrandmaDenise: _well be sad that you've gone to save the universe_

GrandmaDenise: _but that's okay_

GrandmaDenise: _im willing to wait for you to get back lance_

GrandmaDenise: _my job as the oldest is to tell you guys how the world works_

GrandmaDenise: _i don't know how the universe works_

GrandmaDenise: _i wont be able to tell you whats right and whats wrong out there_

GrandmaDenise: _we wont be able to talk to you, to warn you of the dangers ahead and what to watch out for_

GrandmaDenise: _we wont be able to stop you from leaving lance_

GrandmaDenise: _but please_

GrandmaDenise: _just remember to say goodbye_

* * *

Lance swallowed thickly as he turnt his phone off, looking to see Hunk looking at him from down the corridor.

"Hey man, are you okay?" Lance smiled brightly at the question and turned a full 180o towards the direction he had just came.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Now, forwards towards crappy food!"

A proper goodbye.

He could do that.


	4. December - White

It could safely be said that Christmas was Lance's favourite human holiday.

Not that their family really did religious holiday's as they already had something that some of them (Paulyne) followed to the letter, but it didn't stop them from being festive and celebrating the fact that most of their family was still together after so long. They didn't really get each other gifts, but they all got together, tried not to find something that would cause an argument (something that Lance hoped didn't happen, not when he hadn't seen some of them for ages), celebrated the past years achievements and remembered those who couldn't join them.

It was weird to celebrate such a human holiday, but in the absences of any Altean celebrations, all of which had probably been lost to history now, and the general desire to disassociate from everything Galra as much as possible, they were left with the human holidays, and by Altea was there lots of human holidays to choose from.

They celebrated practically everything under the sun, though, if he had a short life span just like a human did, he too would try to make sure he was making the most of the deca-pheobes given to him.

Not that he wasn't already doing that, but the point still stood.

The flight from Arizona to Cuba was uneventful and boring, spending most of the time he could texting Hunk, who had gone back to his Mums for Christmas, and thinking of a good gift he could get Hunk for his birthday, which happened to be straight after he got back to the Garrison. At that moment in time, he was stuck between a good recipe book or some parts for whatever project the boy happened to be planning next.

He'll have to ask Denise. She was good with these sorts of things.

After the flight, he was picked up at the airport by Ashleigh, who happened to be the best aunt in the 'Verse, and the only one in the family who actually owned a car. The ride back consisted Ashleigh giving Lance the run-down of what had been happening during the four months he had been away and staring at the Christmas decorations that littered the festive humans.

He was so glad to be back home.

* * *

Walking into the house, Lance smiled at the amount of tinsel that was wrapped around the banisters, most likely Skye, the piles of shoes that lived by the front door, looking a bit more worn than before he had left, and the coin sized glowing crystals that had been left there and forgotten to be back.

Sighing, he silently put the crystals, a brilliant white that brought out his dark tan when placed against each other, back into his pocket, ready to be put into the shed later, and moved further into the house, where the living room alive with the sound of the TV, the petty arguments of siblings and the quiet chatter of the adults as they discussed 'adult' things like taxes and how the good days of yonder were.

He had missed this from the Garrison. Sure, there was Hunk, and he was a great friend, don't get him wrong, but nothing could make the same atmosphere as his family, especially not the strict and competitive Garrison. You just wouldn't find people gathered into one room and arguing and smiling and shouting and laughing over the insignificant things, not when there's exams to study for, simulations to complete, Keith Kogane's top score to beat. At the Garrison, there was always something going on, always something to do, always keeping busy and moving forward. Here, it was slow, calm. Not a competition, at least, not one with dire consequences if you lost.

Time here in Cuba, in this household, seemed to be put on hold, so while the planet kept spinning and the rest of the planet's population went on with living, everyone here smiled over what life had given them.

"Lance! You're back!"

Lance got no other forewarning before he got overwhelmed by Skye's hug, almost pushing the both of them back onto the floor with the amount of force that she put into it. Huffing, Lance hugged back with as much vigour, relaxing into it as he felt his skin ripple from the human cover to his natural form, the scales becoming visible under his eyes and his hair becoming blue again. After so long of being trapped in the unnatural form, it felt similar to a good face cleansing, wiping away any dust, dirt, make up, grime and grease until all that's left is the radiant skin that was previously hidden underneath.

The noise of the room had dropped significantly, the only thing left in the background was the television, playing whatever nonsense that Grandpa had decided to put on. However, if stares could make noises then the room would be full to the brim with sound, all trying to be heard over one another.

Well didn't that make things awkward.

"So, you're back then."

Lance winced at the crude wording form Paulyne.

These next two weeks were going to be so fun.

* * *

The first week goes by in a flash, filled with fun times and silly conversations, all equally avoiding the elephant in the room. Lance helps out with Skye's studies as she learns the properties of quintessence types, laughs at Catharyne's, sometimes crudely worded, jokes that she had learnt during her time in England, remembering them to tell Hunk later. He grins widely at Denise's stories of her work place while doing their nails together and artfully avoids Paulyne's jabs, throwing some right back at her. He helped Ashleigh with the cooking, Mama with the cleaning, and Grandpa with the farming, helping to milk the three cows that they kept, collecting the eggs first thing in the morning from the hens and making sure that all the animals were fed in the morning and in the evening.

It was weird, being home. After four months at the Garrison, where everything was constantly moving, always something new to learn and gain, with a rumour mill that worked its way around the facility faster than Kogane in the simulators or even Shirogane and his team in their ship towards Kerberos, home hadn't changed a bit, with the same coloured quintessence that he had grown up with, the same people who knew him since before he could even talk. There was not mysterious force watching over him here, no Hunk to make him laugh even when he was feeling sad, no crazy competitive kids trying to prove that they were the best, better than everyone else.

Here it was him, his family, and the quintessence crystals that they surround themselves with, where time didn't affect them as much as it did for humans.

What was four months compared to centuries?

What was a single week compared to four months?

Because, sometimes during that week, they forgot the reason why Lance left for America, for the Galaxy Garrison.

Because, sometimes, they forgot that he even left at all.

Because sometimes, they were just as happy as they were before.

* * *

"They're late."

Looking up from his meal of peas, corn and mash, Lance glanced at Paulyne who was looking at her own dinner, her short pink hair covering up her eyes and face scales, making her facial expressions almost impossible to read.

"Who's 'they'? Don't tell me you got yourself a human date-mate and invited them to dinner, especially after the crap you gave me when I had one." Catharyne teased and she ate a forkful of mashed potato, smirking at the thunderous face Paulyne pulled at her at the mere thought.

"I do not have a human date-mate, thank you very much. I would much rather die than 'date' a human. I was talking about the Blade, they should have visited phoebes ago, and yet we've still got nothing from them!" Paulyne hissed, making Lance frown at the way that she worded her dislike for the humans.

It was a well-known, but little-discussed, fact that Paulyne hated humans, with only some of the hate being justifiable. Between the bullying at school causing her to drop out as soon as she could along with her bad experience with Catharyne's ex, Lance understood where some of the hate towards them came from, 'some' being the key word as for the rest was really uncalled for. She never took the time to understood them and their remarkably brief lives along with how far they've come in the short time they've existed, and just hates them on the account of the small number of humans that she's met in Cuba, believing that they were the same around the planet.

Nobody did anything to prove her wrong, or to discourage her degrading language when humans came into the conversation, just accepted it, and moved on. (Well, except that time that Catharyne tried, but that was when everyone liked her ex.) It was that or face the wrath of a very knowledgeable (when it came to quintessence) and skilled druid, which none of them really could be bothered to do, not with someone as stubborn as Paulyne.

"Yes, well, I don't believe checking up on us and seeing if the Blue Lion is still here after so long is their biggest concern, since, as you may have forgotten, there is the whole intergalactic empire that they're trying to take down takes up just a bit more of their time and attention." Ashleigh said sweetly, scooping up the last if her vegetables as she ignored the glare that Paulyne sent her way.

"She does have a point." Denise said, moving the peas around her plate. "The Blade, while busy, have always made time to come to Terra to check on the Lion due to what a large-scale weapon could become in the Empire's hands. It is pretty concerning that they haven't visited, or even left some kind of sign that they're on their way or even still existing."

"Well, I reckon we would know if at least one of us was there with them." Lance muttered to himself as he pushed his own half-filled plate and began to stand.

"Where do you think you're going Lance?" Mama asked tersely, and never before had Lance felt more disconnected from his mother, as even the text messages felt more welcoming than the tone of voice that she had just used.

"Out to the barn. Abuela didn't come in for dinner and I don't want to have another argument about my life choices." Lance said over his shoulder, missing the look of regret that filled his mother's face, nor did he see Catharyne's face screw up in confusion.

* * *

Knocking on the door, Lance waited for about 10 ticks before letting himself in into the barn, making sure not to drop any of the peas onto the floor before reaching Abuela, who sat on a floor cushion and seemingly meditating over two crystals that were on the larger side.

Shaking his head, Lance simply sat down across from her, the same position he would take only months ago when she taught him the quintessences, placed the plate of food in front to him and simply waited until she was done before starting a conversation, not wanting to break her concentration since it was the project that had been making her skip meals in the past months that he had been absent for.

It was mesmerising to watch the crystal shimmer from what Lance guessed was a faded purple to a quick flash of blue, red, white, black, then back to the faded purple, only for the cycle to start again. The crystals were ones that Lance had never seen before, as instead of the white crystal that was still in his pocket from the week before, having forgotten to put them away, these were easily bigger than his hands, reminding him of a crystal ball, though he doubted that he would see the future using it.

Taking out the crystal from his pocket, he fiddled with it, spinning it between his fingers and sat there feeling the way that the White quintessence would flow within the stone like the calm but strong winds on the beach. It was always comforting to feel, and it easily took his mind off any problem or any nagging worries that consumed his mind, and would be the perfect gift for Hunk if Lance didn't already know that his best friend would ask where he got the crystal, and the that would open bag of worms that he didn't want to sort out.

"What brings you in here Lance?"

Lance looked up from the crystal to smile at Abuela, taking note of the extra stress marks and the bags under her eyes.

"I was wondering if I am allowed to know the oh-so-important project that was causing you to skip meals is all. I even brought you food." Lance gestured the food in front of him, now cold from the December chill (as cold as it was going to get in Cuba anyway), but Abuela smiled nevertheless.

"I take it that people are ready to start to have arguments during a meal time again then." Lance frowned at the comment, knowing it was almost completely unrelated to his question. Sure, most of the arguments did happen over a meal, the last one about the Garrison had been during breakfast and the amount of times that Denise and Paulyne argued over something petty over a meal was countless, an event that had been happening before even Catharyne was even born.

"You make it sound like it stopped."

"It had according to Skye. She mentioned that the tension was still there, but it was mutually agreed that mealtimes were family time, not times to argue." She replied, looking back down at the crystals, watching the way the light would illuminate the surrounding areas, as if it held the secrets she needed.

"That's the reason you stopped going to meals then?! Lance asked, though he felt stupid for asking such a question. He always did with Abuela, even with the smiles and all the encouragement that she gave to him, he always felt idiotic when asking something when it was obvious of what the answer would be.

"Partially." She simply stated, smiling almost sadly at the crystals below, then cocking her head and looking towards the door.

"I believe this one's for you dear." Abuela said as she glanced back down towards the two crystals, placing a hand on each of them as they began to flash the different colours as she went back to her project. Lance took at the dismissal as it was, standing up at the knock on the barn door and beginning to walk towards it, leaving the plate of food behind.

"Lance?"

Turning his head, Lance glanced at his role model, who hadn't moved during his entire visit, inclining his head slightly in a silent gesture of acknowledgement.

"You should keep hold of that crystal Lance, you'll never know when you'll need it and don't let anything hold you back, even if you think that there's no way forward. Okay?"

"Sure?" Lance replied, frowning as he left Abuela in the same state as he found her, leaving with now more questions than he arrived, like he always had done when he had been under her tutelage.

That feeling that Lance had gotten during the Garrison was back again, but he didn't think it was for the better.

* * *

Lance shouldn't have been surprised when he opened the barn door to see Catharyne staring intensely at him, nor should he have been surprised when she grabbed his top and began to pull him out and away from the barn.

"I take it I missed something big during my time at Uni, something that the _entire_ family thought was unimportant to tell me but important enough to hold against someone they hadn't seen in four months." Lance winced at the wording. He had been the person to tell her about the acceptance letter, the only one it seemed, as he had glossed over the argument they had and his reasoning for going over Catharyne's congratulations for him, as she was the oldest child that had decided to go onto further education past 18 years old and thus the only other person in the family who knew how competitive post-mandatory education could be.

Maybe he was a little selfish to take the praise that he got instead of telling her the full reason as to why he applied for the Garrison in the first place.

"I wouldn't say that the argument was that much of a deal-"

"Really? Mama looked really guilty, Skye looked as if she was going to cry, Denise left without finishing her meal, so Ashleigh went after her, quiznak even Paulyne looked tense after you left!" Lance bit his lip as Catharyne ranted. He knew that the family was at least slightly tense after what he said, what with the texts he'd been getting at the Garrison and the way that they had tried their best to completely avoid the topic of him leaving them to go and help people light years away, to the point that Catharyne really had no idea of what was going on.

He'd have thought that Denise would have asked for her opinion, Paulyne ranting at her for his idiotic move or even Skye texting her as much as she had done for him during his absence.

"Well, at first they were scared that the Garrison was going to find out that I wasn't human, as if I was that stupid, but then I told them that I wanted to do it to help the Blade and the other rebel groups and I can't do that if I'm stuck here an-"

"Okay." Lance blinked stupidly at the interruption. Okay. that it?

"Just promise me one thing." Catharyne had stopped ragging him around now, leaving them in an empty field between the house and the barn, away from anything and anyone.

"Anything."

"Promise me that, after you leave Earth, we'll see each other again." Lance eyes widened at the statement then frowned.

"I am coming back-"

"No. No you're not." Lance could have sworn he felt his stomach drop.

"Cath-"

"No Lance! I don't know a lot about space, but I know it big and dark and dangerous. You've always wanted to help people, and I've known since the day that you asked me about the Blade that you want to help the people fighting against the Empire, something that I know a lot about.

"The thing about Earth is that it isn't our home, not really. You won't feel the need to come back to the planet as much as a human would, as our planet is dead. It was destroyed 10,000 deca-phoebes ago, and it's never coming back.

"So, I'm not asking you to come back here, that too mean. I'm asking you to see me, the rest of the family, again after you leave."

Mutely, Lance nodded his head, taking in Catharyne's words, turning them over in his head while fiddling with the small crystal that now held a permanent home in whatever pocket he was wearing that day.

See his family again after helping the universe. That wasn't that hard, all things considered.

"LANCE! CATHARYNE! THERE'S SOMETHING YOU'VE GOTTA SEE!"

The mentioned people stole a quick glance at each other before following Skye's voice back towards the house.

It better not be one of those cat videos that she was addicted to.

* * *

It defiantly wasn't one of those cat videos.

Instead, it was the breaking news, where the Kerberos mission had failed, with all members of the Shirogane-Holt team dead, and the pilot to blame.

(After the news, Lance had at least three arguments with his family, as he didn't believe that they had died due to piloting but due to the Galra. Only Paulyne believed him.)

(Who would have thought)

(Mama didn't want him to go back to the Garrison, tried to forbid him from going.)

(Not that it worked.)

(A day before classes started again, Lance got a letter stating that there was now a spot for him in the fighter class.)

(He wondered what drastic action had taken place for that to have happened.)


	5. January - Purple

Lance wasn't in the bests of moods when he got back to the Garrison.

The flight had been too long, filled with people, from rushing business men to crying children, who did not want to be there, their quintessence filling the plane with a jittery atmosphere that caused Lance to sit at the edge of his seat, filled with an anxious energy. Then there was the wait for the Garrison funded transport, which took it's sweet, sweet time getting there, leaving them in temperatures that was about 14oC, which was much colder than he was used to in Cuba.

The bus was filled with teenagers reacquainting with one another and his phone exploded with text messages from Mama and Skye about five ticks after turning it off flight mode, the former telling him that she still thinks that he was wrong to be going back to the Garrison, saying that they trained them to be heroes and heroes don't come home while the latter was still asking a ridiculous amount of questions about the crash as if he knew what had happened or even knew the people in the team.

They were the most vocal about their reaction of the crash. Of course, the elder people of their family had lived through more tragic events than a space crash that only killed three people. Denise was perhaps the least reactive about the event among his siblings, the only thing she did was send side glances at him, probably concerned that he too would crash into the side of a planet before he could even fight against the Galra. Catharyne was the most vocal on his side, going on a long rant with Mama about how she trusted Lance not to crash and how the crash didn't reflect how the teachings of the Garrison. Paulyne's only comment to her family was that it was evidence that humans were obviously not ready as a species to leave their home solar system. She told Lance something else in private.

* * *

 _Lance was brushing his teeth when Paulyne cornered him._

 _"What do you want?" He asked, his mouth filled with minty foam, his face covered with a face mask, his blue hair pinned back to make sure it didn't get sticky. Paulyne didn't seem to be too impressed with the get up, but she didn't comment on it, used to it after living with him for 17 years._

 _"The Kerberos crash couldn't have been pilot error." She said it as if saying something that didn't contain reference to deaths, but rather stating what was going to be served that night for dinner, a tone that Lance had become used to when talking to Paulyne. So instead, Lance raised his eyebrows at the comment and waited for the elder to carry on with what she was saying._

 _"I mean, sure, the Galaxy Garrison is completely corrupt, a known fact know by everyone," Lance nodded his head with the statement, as it was a common joke between the cadets that they could just pay their instructors off if they fail their midterms, "but even they wouldn't send someone who was completely incapable of landing on a planet that such a minimal atmosphere on the first mission to said planet, as well as all the media coverage they had on it." Paulyne stated, her voice containing a bitter, angry tone which made her words bite, reflecting all the hate that she had for these humans. Lance only sighed as he spat out the paste and washed his toothbrush under the tap_

 _"Your point?" He yawned, placing his toothbrush back in the glass under the mirror and leaving the bathroom to go towards the room he shared with Catharyne at the end of the hall._

 _"My point is that I think that there was a third party involved with the mission." Lance blinked at her words, then turned to face the speaker, his back facing the door to his room._

 _"A third party? You think that the Garrison purposely failed their own mission, the one that they spent millions of dollars on?" He asked, raising one eyebrow, feeling the way that the face mask pulled on his own skin. At least he knew that it was doing its job, despite the slight tingles of pain._

 _"No, I think it was the Galra." At this point, if Lance was drinking, he would have spat it all out in Paulyne's face._

 _"What the quiznak are you going on about?!"_

 _"Think about it! We haven't seen hind nor hair of the Blade in almost 20 decaphoebes, they're at least five decaphoebes late, and despite Mama's protests that it's the humans update in outer space technology, we both know that the Blade have been hiding from the druids for the best part of 8,000 decaphoebes, some petty human tech isn't going to be that difficult to hide from." Lance clenched at Paulyne's words, hearing the truth right as clear as a bell._

 _"Why are you telling me this, why not Denise, or Mama?" He asked as he opened his bedroom door and entered, leaving Paulyne to close it behind her._

 _"Because they won't take me seriously!" Paulyne almost shouted as she dropped herself onto Catharyne's. "I even tried talking to the other adults Lance, and the biggest reaction I got out of them was Abuela pursing her lips and going back to that stupid crystal project that's got her up in circles!" Lance picked up the white crystals he had left on his bedside table, flipping them between his fingers as he listened to Paulyne's concerns._

 _It seemed none of the adults were listening to them._

 _But did they ever?_

* * *

 _He and Paulyne didn't come up with a solution to the problem about the crash, and so they had to leave it unsolved with their trust in the older generation of the family a little thinner than before. However, they didn't tell anything to Catharyne nor Skye, a mutual agreement that they shouldn't involve either of the girls with their problems as they wouldn't be able to do anything more than Paulyne and Lance could do, that and Lance wasn't sure if Skye even fully knew what the Blade was._

 _Ah, the failings in the McClain education, maybe not as bad as the American education he was receiving, but it was close if Paulyne's hatred for the entire human race was anything to go by._

 _Lance sighed as he leaned his head against the window of the bus, content with having the movement of the bus against his head in hopes that it will sooth the knot he had gained in his neck during the flight. Wrapping his jacket tighter when the bus opened its door, Lance stared back at the notifications of his phone, wondering if he should even respond to them._

 _Turning his phone to standby, Lance continued to look out of the window, staring at Arizona's desert, in his pocket the white crystals were bring turned over in his hands, the quintessence calming his own slightly._

 _Nah, he'll come back to it later, he wasn't in the mood to argue right now._

* * *

"I can't do it!" Paulyne frowned as she looked at an angry Skye at the kitchen table, sitting at the same seat as Lance was when he was told about the Blade, except, instead with a couple of purple crystals about the size of a small tennis ball in her hands instead of a science text book. Signing, she entered the room and sat across from her.

"What exactly are you trying to do?" She asked the ten-year-old, picking up one of the crystals in from of her and rolling it in her hands. Skye clenched her jaw, and looked back down at the crystals, watching the way that the quintessence moved in against itself in a rhythmic dance.

"I want to do what Lance did." She muttered under breath.

"I'm going to be taking that to be fully learning your quintessence core instead of ripping into someone's mind and taking away some of their memories." Paulyne said blankly as put the crystal back down onto the table, watching as it slowly rolled towards her younger sister, ignoring the way that Skye winced at the cruel wording.

"It's sounds horrid when you say it like that." Skye said sadly as she put her hand out to stop the crystal from falling off the table, as while it wouldn't break despite it looking like glass, they've all had lectures about proper crystal care.

"That's because what he was horrible, even if it was to a human." Paulyne calmly replied, internally wishing for a way she could quickly change the subject.

"Okay, so what he did was ethnically wrong, but he did it all by himself, and here I am struggling to even get into my bloody mindscape." Skye exclaimed, throwing her arms up for added effect. Paulyne sighed.

"Yes, but he also started to properly learn it when he was twelve, giving him two whole years to teach himself how to enter someone's mind and to learn his own limits. You are ten. You've just started to learn Skye. Do not expect the answers to jump out at you, especially then it comes to your own core. Nobody in his household, not me, not Abuela and especially not Lance, will be able to help you get there." Paulyne stood up from her seat, leaving Skye alone sitting at the table.

"Your mind isn't a book. It's not like the theory of the colours that Abuela is teaching you, you cannot memorise it. Lance knew that, that is why it didn't take him so long to properly understand his core and to use it." With that, Paulyne left the room, leaving Skye with just the crystals for company.

Picking the crystals up, Skye looked into the moving colours inside, feeling the way that it would hum and sing along with her own quintessence. Paulyne had a point; Lance was a master of the mind, his own and others, holder of a pure Blue core, of course he was able to do it so quickly. But, the quicker she did it, the quicker she would be able to help her brother.

The quicker she was about to help Lance with whatever he felt like he needed to do, then the quicker he could come home.

* * *

It wasn't until Lance left the bus and felt Hunk's nervous quintessence while standing in front of a large crowd of teenagers with their luggage that held a tang of impatience wash over him that he felt a proper calm. Smiling, Lance wheeled his suitcase over to his best friend and gasped in surprised when he was picked up and practically squeezed to death by the taller boy.

"Thank god Lance, I thought you weren't going to be coming back!" Hunk exclaimed, putting the smaller boy back onto the floor.

"What! Why would you think that?" Lance asked back, brushing his hand through his brown hair. It was slightly longer than it was before, as he wanted to experiment a bit, but so far, he hadn't taken to well to it. If worst comes to worst, he'll get Hunk to cut it or something.

"So many people in our year have dropped out man, due to the Kerberos crash, to the point that the Garrison are actually going to be accepting people midyear. Even Kogane dropped out, though, he was more expel-"

"Wait wait wait, Mullet-man's gone? How am I going to keep up our rivalry if I'm the only one here?" he exclaimed loudly, making some people turn their heads towards them, although, at the same time, he felt a sadness weigh his own body down.

He didn't get into the fighter classes by his own merit. He knew that, deep down, something must have happened, but for Kogane to drop out…

He was just the replacement.

"I don't know why you keep going on about this rivalry Lance, because I'm pretty sure you're the only one who knows about it."

"Ha, that's where you're wrong Hunk, as our rivalry is known throughout the Galaxy Garrison, everyone as heard of it." Lance proclaimed, waving one arm in the air while the other dragged along his suitcase, filled to the brim with the things that he needed to survive the new term.

"Sure." Hunk didn't sound to convinced, so instead of checking his buzzing phone in his pocket to see what either his Mother nor his youngest sister were trying to tell him, he spent the walk up to the dorms trying to convince Hunk that, yes, he and Kogane did have a rivalry and, no Hunk, he didn't just make it up, making sure to wave his hands at the right point to make sure that his friend understood where he and Mullet laid.

He left his phone on the desk to buzz while he packed the bags.

He left the phone in his room to buzz when he went to the cafeteria, and then when he went to class, and then when he to the local town.

(He left behind to buzz on Earth when he went to space, but shhh, he doesn't know that yet.)


	6. February - Orange

MamaBear: _I still think you should drop out_

MamaBear: _lance_

MamaBear: _things are going to end badly if you continue at the garrison_

MamaBear: _mark my words_

MamaBear: _don't ignore me_

MamaBear: _I am your mother_

MamaBear: _RESPOND YOUR TEXT MESSAGES NOW_

MamaBear: _…_

MamaBear: _Lance?_

* * *

Hunk was worried.

Sure, he worried about a lot of things, like the newest piece of homework that Professor Montgomery set not being up to her standard, something that was very hard to reach, or the upcoming simulations that was supposed to act life like. While he was one of the top students in his classes, he got travel sick easily, so he didn't think he was that desirable for a team member. Not only that, he also didn't know who was going to be on their team, meaning that he didn't know if he'll get along with them. Okay, sure, he did get along with everyone somehow, Lance was very proud of that fact and would tell him all the time, but what if they didn't like him or something? What if they hated him? Hated him for being too sick to fix anything that broke, or being too chatty when they were trying to concentrate.

Those were not the things that currently worried him.

Nowadays, it was Lance he worried about the most.

Lance was everything Hunk could have wished for in a friend, as, for some reason, he was able to read him in a way that nobody else could, always knowing what he was feeling before Hunk even knew what he was feeling. He made it as if they had been friends since childhood, able to calm his anxieties like it was nothing and able to keep a steady conversation between them with no effort needed. Not only that, but he supported him with his studies, happy to help him with the flashcards even if he doesn't know what the hell Hunk had written, he listen to his long-winded rants about the Garrison's awful food.

Hunk considered himself lucky to be able to call Lance McClain his very first best friend.

But after the holidays, after hearing about the Kerberos crash, Lance had been acting… off? Like, he still did everything that he did before the holidays, he still listen to his rants and helped him with his flashcards and somehow knew when his thoughts were getting the best of him, except, sometimes when he was in lesson he would stare into space, as if he was listening to a voice that wasn't there, or when his phone would buzz too many times in a minute, he would look up from studying on his bed to look at it on his bedside table with a look of mourning, but not as in a 'someone died' kinda way but more in a 'they don't get me' kinda way, and ignore the notifications, despite wanting a reason to stop reading the very dry flier manuals.

Hunk already knew there was tension between Lance and his family, it was already there before the winter holidays. Lance had admitted one night while eating some stolen food from the cafeteria that most of his family didn't want him to even go to the Galaxy Garrison, and not because of the cost, since Lance was one of the lucky people on a full scholarship, nor because of the distance, because Hunk had been told many a story of his older sister (Caitlyn?) who was studying history in Oxford, and England was further away from Cuba than Arizona was, but rather because what it stood for.

Hunk didn't really get it at the time, but he nodded his head and supported his friend nonetheless.

After the Kerberos failure, Hunk understood it, not fully, but just a little bit more.

After all, his own family were concerned about sending him back, and it was only until after he convinced them that he didn't really want to go to space, but just make the things that sent people to space and make sure that things like the crash wouldn't happen, did they relent and let him go back to the Garrison. For others, he had heard, it had been harder to convince their families, resulting in them dropping out of the program altogether. Then there where those who were still on the program, some of them were the ones that were cocky, thinking that they could be better than those on the Kerberos mission, those who thought, had they been their instead of Captain Shirogane, the mission would have been a success. There were some who protested against that view, saying that he couldn't have crashed it, that it must have been something to do with the hardware, or the software, and how it could not have anything to do with the hero pilot that was Captain Shirogane Takashi.

Everyone had something to say about the crash.

Everyone except Lance, that was.

Every time the subject was brought up, Lance was able to artfully dodge the questions that asked for his opinions, speak empty comments about it that gave away nothing about what he really felt towards the crash, only telling the other person facts that everyone already knew about the crash, but perhaps in a different wording that made them think that what they got an opinion from him.

It was as if he was hiding something behind his flirting persona and his dazzling smile, which worried Hunk, as Lance couldn't lie to save his life, at least, not to Hunk at least (though that was a story for another time).

It made Hunk feel uneasy with the idea that Lance was hiding something from him, which then just made him angry that he even considered that because who was he to demand every one of Lance's secrets? Just because he liked to overshare when he was comfortable with someone (sometimes he doesn't need to be that comfortable with someone, just in a very stressful situation) don't mean that Lance needs to share the same.

But, it would be nice to know what was on his best friend's mind sometimes.

"Hunk, I'm back from my mission to find more material for my fighter pilot classes," At this, Hunk raised his head from its resting position on the pile of books that he was currently loaning from the library to stare at Lance enter their shared room with a small pile of flight manuals in his arms, his head just barely visible over the books, "and you'll never guess what I found out from Ryan, who was told by Bryony, who apparently said that Shantell got a text from Becky saying that saw a girl be kicked out of Iverson's office." Hunk frowned as he sat up, his attention onto the only other person.

"Wait, what?" Lance broke into a wide grin, knowing that he has caught Hunk's interest, his work now laid forgotten on the bed.

"I know right! Apparently, the girl doesn't even come here!" Lance exclaimed as he slammed his books down onto his desk, a large thud echoing in the small room, and quickly sits down so he can start to flick through them. "Which means that she came all this way from proper civilization to break into Iverson's office, which seems like too much effort if you ask me, and according to Andy, Andrew Robertson from Physics that is, not Patterson, who, did you know, is currently cheating on Brooklyn for Hermione, and… What was I saying? Oh yeah, Andy was there at the time that Ryan was telling me about the weird girl and he thinks that she's a conspiracy theorist that believes that the Garrison was hiding something about the crash, but then Ryan butted in saying that the Garrison wouldn't hide anything, the god damn brownnoser that he is- Quiznek!" The other boy shouted as he started to hold his right hand, a small trail of blood leaving his index finger.

Ah the curse of paper cuts.

"You okay?" Hunk asked as he watched Lance nod and started to suck his finger. He sighed, but then frowned.

"What kind of word is 'quiznek'?" Hunk asked, saying the word slowly, confused of how comfortable it felt in his mouth, as if the alien word was supposed to be part of his vocabulary. Lance had a look of panic flash over his friend, only to face his friend and smile, well, as much as he could smile with a bleeding finger in his mouth.

"It's um, it's a word that me and my sisters made up because, err, we aren't allowed to swear unless we wanted the taste of washing up liquid in our mouth for a month." He said, his smile not leaving his face as he removed his finger from his mouth, the blood and the cut suspiciously missing from his index finger.

Like Hunk said earlier, his very first best friend just so happened to be a very, very bad liar.

* * *

MamaBear: _are you coming back for the easter break?_

MamaBear: _no_

MamaBear: _you ARE coming back for the easter break_

MamaBear: _Lance_

MamaBear: _Lance Jackson McClain_

MamaBear: _You better respond to these texts right now before I demand the Garrison to send you home immedently_

MamaBear: _*immediately_

MamaBear: _…_

MamaBear: _please lance_

* * *

Paulyne sighed as she stretched her arms over her head, her skin an unnatural light purple, her nails looking more claws and her eyes bright yellow, her legs jittery as she sat at Denise's dressing table and stared at the mirror in front of her.

She wanted a bit more fur on her arms and proper ears poking out of her purple hair, all tied up in a loose bun on the back of her neck, but she did manage to hide her markings, so this was probably the closest she was going to get to looking like a Galra, until she figured out how their bloody ears worked that is.

And she thought human ears were hard.

Maybe she just needed a live specimen in front of her to copy.

Did that half-breed have Galra ears?

A knock at the door made her jump, but the growl at the bottom of her throat was enough to sooth her mood, happy with the knowledge that she had at least got the proper vocal cords for a Galra, which should make up for the ears, at least a little. The door opened to see a very confused and slightly scared Skye, eyes as wide as dinner plates and jaw resting on the floor.

"What the fuck?!" She exclaimed, only to hurriedly cover her mouth at the swear. Ugh. Paulyne hung her head at the action. What was she going to do, grass her up? She wasn't like that.

Sometimes.

"Just practicing, as I'm in between projects at the moment." She stated, nodding her head towards the bright pink mouse that was sleeping in its cage, a blue one nibbling on some cheese she had fed it and two smaller dark purple ones chasing each other. It had taken her an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to change the genetic code enough for it to mix so that the off spring would be a mix of both, but Denice was able to nudge her in the right direction one day after her shift. Next on her list was to get it so their core colour would show on their fur like their scales, but she wanted at least a break from it first, then she needed to buy some more mice.

She didn't want to experiment on them to the point that they were subconsciously connected, something that Mama experienced when Paulyne was about 7.

The mice died about two weeks later, much to Mama's relief and baby Catharyne's horror.

"Okay. You look weird, are you sure you're not looking for a way to get away with killing humans?" Skye asked innocently, smiling, and tilting her thought at the idea of her committing mass homicide.

Paulyne didn't know what was so funny about it.

"Don't give me ideas squirt. What do you want?" The smile fell from her youngest sister's face, the humour gone from the air, and for a moment, Paulyne wondered if Skye was able to change of the atmosphere through her quintessence.

Though, knowing that she was still struggling to enter her mindscape after a solid month of trying made her think otherwise.

"Mama's crying again." She stated. "She's not getting any texts from Lance. She thinks that Lance isn't coming home, but he has to come home, right?"

Oh, shit now she was crying.

"No, probably not knowing him." She sighed looking back at the mirror to have a closer look at her eyes to see any flaws, only to realise what she said a few seconds too late, just in time to hear a chocking sob and the slam of the door.

Denice was going to have her head when she got in.

Well, it wasn't like she was lying.

* * *

MamaBear: _why aren't you responding_

MamaBear: _lance_

MamaBear: _please come home_

MamaBear: _I don't want someone else to leave_

 _(Seen 19:38)_


	7. March - Grey

When Lance got back to his shared dorm with Hunk with a new flight manual, because the ones he had got out from the library a couple of weeks ago had clearly not been enough, the first thing he did was sit down at his desk was slam the book down onto the table, then his head onto the book, groaning more at the unsatisfying thud it made then the pain that said action produced.

Hunk, being the amazing best friend that he was, didn't even look up from his own project, something that could detect the waves that different elements make, but instead made out a grunt of agreement, his fingers continuously moving the part of the complex machinery, careful to keep his strength reigned in as he moved around the delicate pieces into their proper places, occasionally muttering to himself to make sure that he didn't make a mistake as he built the machine from memory.

Lance stared at his friend from his place at the desk, his head still resting on the heavy book as he admired the way that Hunk just _knew_ what to do with the wires, his quintessence just dancing across his fingers as he figured out what to do while his own just tightened around itself, as if trying to hide from a predator. Humans were amazing, as their capabilities seemed to blow his own out of proportions. Sure, humans have yet to discover quintessence, but they were so talented in such a variety of things it made Lance sometimes wonder how they even manage to learn anything at all in their school with the huge range of subjects available to them and the little amount of time to do it.

They were always in a rush, humans that is, because it was now March, meaning that they were already over halfway through their first school year. By the end of said month, their teachers wanted them to start flying simulations of the machines that they had only learned about for the best part of four or five months, which is not that long at all. It was like expecting Skye to already know where mindscape like the back of her hand, something that should be taking at least 15 phoebes to properly enter without causing damage to the user.

Maybe it was just an Altean thing to learn things slowly, because Hunk seemed to have no problem with the speed of their education, actually enjoying the rate that his teachers moved from one topic to another within a couple of weeks, his Yellow quintessence bubbling with excitement every time a new subject was introduced. Even the newer kids, the ones that took over the places of those who dropped out over Christmas were already catching up with the theory, doing twice the amount of the standard work set while Lane struggled to even catch up with the fighter class, despite the amount of pre-knowledge from being a cargo class held.

His respect for Catharyne for being able to go to high school, then university, where help was minimal for an education that demanded everything to be learned with an impeding deadline, only grew.

He lifted his head to get started on the work set by Iverson, willing to at least show that he was trying to catch up despite being at what seems to be a biological disadvantage (not that the humans knew that) when his phone, left on the centre of his bed after looking at all the messages on his phone but never replying, started to vibrate.

He had a call.

Sighing, he turned the first page of the manual, grabbing his note pad, and began to write in Spanish, as his English still wasn't every good written for him to go back to, with the occasional Altean or Galran term mixed in, using his ability to multiple languages to at least help him some of the least memorable buttons on the ships main board. This wouldn't be the first time he had left his phone to ring, since he still hadn't replied to Mama in now since the beginning of January. He knew that, one day, he would regret the action, but there was only so much he could take from then at the moment before having the desire to throw his phone across the room and listen to the glass smash into thousands of pieces.

"You still ignoring them then?" Lance huffed again before turning to Hunk, who was staring down at his project in confusion, clearly struggling with a part of it, as the phone on the bed stopped vibrating.

"Yeah, Mama still wants me to come home as soon as humanly possible," Lance smiled to himself at the choice of words. "And Skye is convinced that she's never going to see me again, mainly because of something that Paulyne said." Lance replied, his eyes going back to the scribbles on the page and frowning, the almost illegible Spanish with small amounts of Galran and Altean mixed in with the human characters, making it impossible for anyone on the planet, and possibly in the entire universe, to read and understand what coloured buttons would make the machine do what except for Lance, as languages was one of the only human subjects that jumped out at him. He had started to learn English at 8, and a bit of French when he was 12, as part of the human schooling system, however, he started to pick up Japanese when he found out that it was Captain Shirogane's first language.

(Denise called him a fanboy at the time for his fascination for the language and the reason as to why he started to learn it, something that even now Lance couldn't deny.)

Quickly, modern languages became his favourite subject at the small village school that all his family had attended at some point in their lives, if only to keep up appearances. He had started to learn Altean from Catharyne at aged 11, wanting to find a way to spend time with the weird older sister who didn't want to learn about quintessence like the rest of the family, the oddest thing in the universe in Lance's preteen mind. The 15-year-old Catharyne at the time was absolutely delighted with the idea, and, not before long, the two of them were talking to each other in what is now considered a dead language, one that only the druids of the Galra Empire use. After learning about the Galra empire and the war, all he wanted to do was help, even if his family disagreed with his choices, so, after begging his grandfather for a solid month, he finally started to learn some basic Galra, something that actually made his grandfather smile after he learned the speed he was picking up the new language, a rare occurrence for anyone to see after his wife's death a century before.

It was one of the things that actually got him accepted into the Garrison, as it wasn't often that they got a teenager who was fluent in two languages and passable in another two, if the alien ones were taken out of the equation. It wasn't a requirement for the applicants to speak a second language, mainly as the US education system was really bad at teaching their students foreign languages, but students, with a bigger focus on pilots, were expected to be a 'secondary' expert in something. Popular choices for pilots were combat, as the Garrison taught self-defence, first aid (though lots of people dropped out of the course after finding out it really wasn't for them) and extra-terrestrial intelligence, for all those alien fanatics. Lance, however, is one of the only people in his year to become a linguistics specialist, and he's pretty proud of that.

"They do know that the holidays are coming up, right?" Hunk asked, only to get a shrugging Lance as a response while he filled the page over, taking in the information before scribbling something down, a little note in Japanese due to how the kanji reminded him of the function of the particular button.

"I think that they know it's coming up, but becau-" Lance paused what he was saying and turned to look at his phone, which was vibrating again.

Strange. They never tried to call back this quickly.

Walking over to his bed, he picked up the phone and looked at the contact that filled his phone screen.

 _Paulyne_

He had never given her a nickname, not that he didn't try, but because she always managed to change his opinion on her so much, especially over the last couple of months, nothing was ever able to stick properly. This, of course, meant that she was the only one on his phone without a nickname, which was pretty sad in Lance's opinion.

Of course, she never gave a quiznak on what he called her.

Though, the bigger question was why was she calling him, now of all times?

"Hola, ¡mi hermana favorita!" Lance said brightly and loudly, smiling tensely into the receiver. There was an awkward silence on the other side making Lance hold his breath in confusion, and, as the seconds ticked passed, he wondered if his older sister had given up there and then and had decided to hang up on him the instant she heard his voice.

" _Please don't make me hang up the phone straight away."_

Lance sighed silently, letting the tension he didn't know he had flow out of his body, and he felt his quintessence calm at the sound of a family member's voice, even if they did have such a bad personality.

"Por favor, you love me too much for that." The small teasing came naturally to Lance, slipping from his tongue the same way that he naturally converted from one language to another.

Now, if only he could get his flirting to that level standard, then he would be unstoppable.

" _No sabes qué."_

Lance let out a small laugh at the reply, not that he expected less from his hermana.

"Harsh. What do you want?" There was a quick tone shift in his voice, which caused Hunk to spare a glance at his best friend. The tension was back in the air, like a static electricity before a storm. Smiling at Hunk, Lance stood up, leaving his work at the desk, and walking out into the hallway, not wanting to make his friend worry about his family situation than he already did, or overhear something that no human was allowed to know, even if he was his best friend.

(There were times, like now, that he wished he would just tell Hunk the truth, the whole truth.)

" _To convince you not to come home for the spring holidays."_

Lance stopped dead in the hallway of the dorms, one hand still on the door handle while the other held his phone to his ear, a cold chill filling his spine and the oddest impression of someone watching him came back, their invisible eyes bearing into him, their stare calling him, daring him to go find them.

"Why?"

" _Well, Mama's not impressed with you not replying to her texts, no one is really if I'm being honest. You know she wants you to come home as it is, and Skye wants the same. Denise just wants the family to stop fighting, whether you're here or not, and Catharyne is too busy studying her human history to even know what's going on. Abuela is more interested in her project than the food on her plate and Tia Angelica is spending more and more time out of the house, saying that she's 'working', even though everyone knows she not!"_

Lance hear her sigh on her side of the line, and he gritted his teeth.

"Okay, the family's falling apart. So what! The same thing happened when Papa died, you know that! We managed to recover then, why can't we do it again? It's not like I'm going anywhere for the next couple of years anyway, they can't send cadets off to space, so it's not like they have anything to worry about. I need to tell Mama this face to face for her to understand Paulyne, not over text!" Lance almost shouted, but softened his expression when a couple of year mates walked past, curiously watching him talking on his phone as they walked passed, so he compromised and growled it down his phone to the point that he wouldn't be surprised if Paulyne asked for a repeat what he just said.

" _Last time the family wasn't separated halfway across the world! Last time, we knew that Papa wasn't coming back. Last time, we were sure of what was going on in the war, where we stood and were armed with the knowledge of what to do if we needed to. But, now, we don't know what's going on, we don't know how close the Galra are to coming to Terra, especially with the Kerberos mission failure. I get that you're angry at her, and I know that you want to talk sense into Mama, trust me, I've tried, but the only person who seemed to even believe me about the Blade is Abuela, and you know what she's been like recently."_

There was a pause on the other side of the phone, making the only thing that Lance could hear was his own laboured breathing, out of breath despite not being the one doing the talking, giving an impression of a man who sprinted 100 miles, and the rush of his quintessence and his blood in his ears, blocking out the world's sounds and only leaving

" _Mama's not ready to hear it yet. Not from me, and definitely not from you."_

"But what am I supposed to do during the holidays Paulyne, I can't just live at the Garrison, you know that right?" Sarcasm poured from his mouth and into the receiver, while his hands reached for his pockets for the small white crystals that have been able to call his pockets home for the last couple of months. They did little to slow his racing blood, but his breath was able to calm at least a little, making it like he had only ran a single mile instead.

" _I'm saying it's only for the spring break, they'll allow it due to you being an international student. Just- just give Mama a couple more months for it all to sink in, for her to accept it, or she might never let you go again."_

Paulyne sounded on the verge of begging, a strange tone coming from her. Swallowing, Lance looked down the corridor where he saw his year mates walk down, eyes unfocused as he pondered over what he had been told.

"Sure, whatever. You can be the one to tell her." With that, he hung up on her, and went back into his shared dorm, chucking his phone onto his bed, turning back to the desk and sat down at it, then winced when he heard his phone bounce off of the bed and onto the floor. Hunk set his now completed project onto his own desk, as he gave Lance a concerned look.

"Is everything okay?"

Maybe, in once universe, Lance spilled the beans and explained everything that was wrong in his family, the old war between the Galra empire and the new fighting within themselves. Maybe, Lance told his best friend that he wasn't human and that he wanted to go to past the solar system to fight against those who oppressed the others. And, in that one universe, Hunk supported his friend's decisions, and was happy to finally know what was causing them so much worry.

But, hey, that's another story, for another day.

"Not right now, but we're getting there."

* * *

 **A.N. – Okay, so I was supposed to have this finished about Thursday, so I could upload it on Friday, but then I was struck with an Illness that made me sleep not only the weekend away but made me miss college today too. Ugh. Kudos and comments would be well received and make me 10x better, so please leave some below.**

 **In other news, I'm making a soundtrack for the series, so if you have any songs, list them in the comments!**

 **Hola, ¡mi hermana favorita!** **\- Hello, my favourite sister!**

 **Por favor - Please**

 **No sabes qué - You don't know that**

 **Hermana - sister**


	8. April - ﹰGreen

When Hunk found out that Lance wasn't going to be going back to Cuba for the holidays, he gained an evil glint in his eyes that told Lance that he also wasn't going to be spending the holidays at the Garrison either, no matter how much he wanted to argue with the larger boy.

The one time that he did try, Hunk gave him a kicked puppy look and out right told him that Iverson would also being staying here during the spring break while simultaneously begging him to come with him back to Utah for the two weeks.

There was no way that he could say no to that look.

"You'll love it Lance, there's these beautiful cliffs that we can climb with some incredible cave systems, and there's this really small diner that mum owns that makes some of the best milkshakes…" Lance smiled, relaxing into the backseat of Hunk's mum's car while he listened to Hunk ramble about his home town in Utah, about an hour's drive away from the Garrison.

Like he had told Paulyne, he hadn't spoken to his mother about going home for the spring break, nor about staying at Hunk's for the two weeks nor at all really, despite all the worry he know he's probably causing her. His phone was currently dead at the bottom of his bag, and would probably stay there for majority of the trip except to take pictures of the cliff that Hunk loved so much.

Though, knowing his friend's bright Yellow quintessence that always bubbled underneath his brown skin in such a friendly way, which is why he was so approachable, he wasn't really that surprised to know about Hunk's love for the cliff faces, the same way that he loved being near the sea or out in the rain.

"So, Lance is it?" The driver asked, turning back for a fraction of a second to look at him before turning her attention back to the motorway. "I've heard quite a bit about you, mainly because Hunk doesn't stop talking to you."

"Mum!" Laughter fills the car, and Lance can't help but feel jealous of the easy atmosphere and the nice, heathy relationship Hunk seems to have with his mother, making him wish he could go back to those times when the war wasn't on the forefront of his mind, nor on anyone else's, when the biggest concern on his parent's mind was how to deal with their daughters' attitude rather than the constant worry of certain Galra appearing and stealing a weapon they've spent long to protect.

He misses those times, but he gets the feelings that they're gone because he's older rather than the situation changing.

(So, the plan is to change the situation to make everyone happy and safe again.)

"Lance, you okay buddy?" Lance turned his head to look at his best friend, concern in his eyes and a small frown etched onto his face.

He hated to worry Hunk, but he hated that he had to lie more.

"Yeah, I'm alright, it's just I've never been in a car for this long before, as we don't live that far from the airport at home." He replied, touching the top of his ear as he did so, feeling the way that it curved in it's weird but human way. He had also never been in a human form for this long either. It wouldn't have been trouble if he had stayed at the Garrison, as he could have hidden in his room all day and gone back into his Altean form, and maybe even practice some quintessence manipulation, or sort out his mind scape a little bit more through some well-earned meditation.

However, those plans were down the drain as soon as Hunk brought out the puppy eyes.

He didn't know humans could even do that so well.

"Really? Well, I suppose Cuba is pretty small, so that's understandable, but we go on road trips all the time, and one time we went to New York, just to see the food really, and…" Hunk trailed on about the different road trips he and his mum had been on, vividly describing the different food they had seen and tasted, as well as the spices that they had brought back with them, just to experiment with. Lance suddenly couldn't wait to try their food, and wondered if they served proper spicy food, and not the 'hot' curries that the Garrison served, because if there was something he missed from Cuba, it was the food.

"-and I kid you not Lance, the pizza was larger than some of the wheels for the trucks that pull the fighter planes they have at the Garrison, and it had the best mix of cheese I had ever tasted-- Look, it's the cliffs I told you about!" Lance looked towards where his friend was pointing, and could only gape at the orange sandstone in the distance, easily towering higher than any skyscraper that Lance had ever seen. From where he was sat, he could effortlessly make out the rough edges, as if someone had hacked it with a blunt knife, and yet they stood tall and proud, as if holding the secrets of the world that nobody, not even an alien like him, could get.

And for a moment, he wondered why he was leaving Earth, because there was so much here that he hadn't seen yet.

For a moment, he forgot about the war, and the problems with his family, and even the Blue Lion in the middle of the Arizonian desert seemed like a distant spec of dust in space.

For a moment, he hesitated.

For a moment, he almost stayed.

\--

It wasn't until a week into his stay with Hunk's family that he was able to go and visit the cliff with Hunk, but the long wait was completely worth it.

During that time, Hunk showed Lance to so much that he didn't think was possible on such an underdeveloped planet technology wise. He introduced him to so many new kinds of food, some of which he thought was impossible and others he didn't know could be pared together. They do other things together, like visit the arcade, and go swimming, staying in the confinements of the town while Hunk's mum works at the small diner that she owns, something that they're happy to do as they always got free milkshakes for their work. Hunk also showed Lance some of the small projects that he made that had gathered dust in the garage while he studied at the Garrison, ranging from 5thgrade science projects to small but ingenious things that he had made while bored, some of them having more potential than Hunk even knows, Lance noted as he admires a slim machine that detects unknown elements, but, at a closer inspection, could easily be rewired and programmed to detect quintessence and other life energies too.

It honestly annoys Lance about how close these closed-minded humans comeso quiznaking closeto answering their questions about the universe before visiting the space further than their solar system, but always swerve at last moment, as if their scared of the answers.

Though, Lance doesn't blame that fear, because loo at the result of the absence of that fear.

"C'mon boys! We're almost at the top!" Hunk's mother, Samantha, shouted behind her towards Lance and Hunk, who were trailing behind, admiring the view they got from the height the cliff gave them.

"Mum! Give Lance a chance to look around!" Hunk shouted back up, making Lance smile, missing that closeness that he once held with his own family. Sighing, he placed a hand on the cliff face as he followed his friend up the cliff, his eyes widening as he felt the rush of quintessence come to meet his hand from the planet itself while Hunk turned the corner to catch up with Samantha. It was bright Green and bubbling with curiosity, almost as if the planet itself was asking why he was here, and where was he going to go after. It was almost strange for that colour to be here, where there was almost no vegetation, and most would think that it should be Yellow instead, more fitting for the area.

But, while Earth was a very rocky planet, it was filled with curious and empathetic species that want to learn and to have their questions answered, and their planet reflects this. Lance could feel it ask it's many questions through his hand, practically begging him to impart the knowledge that no human has, and, who was Lance to refuse? Slowly closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and thought about all the different knowledge and wisdom that his family had imparted on him through the years, as well as the things that he had to learn on his own, the way that Blue quintessence works as well as the mind.

"Lance, you coming man?" He snapped his eyes open and stared at his hand on the orange sandstone, glowing a light blue.

Quintessence in its purest form, something that should be impossible to do according to the records.

But, there have always been times that the records were wrong.

"Yeah, just admiring the view." Lance muttered as he removed his hand from the stone, feeling almost sad at the loss of contact with the planet, then moving forward and turning the corner to catch up with his friend, glad that he didn't see the glowing, meaning that he wouldn't have to explain anything, at least, not today.

All too soon, it was time to go back to the Galaxy Garrison, but Utah's quintessence rich cliffs left an impression on Lance that he doubted that any alien planet could leave on him.

(Catharyne was wrong when she said that he wouldn't come back. He will, he has to, because there's so much about this strange blue planet that he doesn't know yet that he doubts space will be able to answer.)

\--

"And out communications officer is… Who the heck is Pidge Gunderson?"

"Right here." Lance looked down to see who spoke, and the only way that he could properly describe them is 'gremlin'. Short, light brown hair framed her face while her hazel eyes were hidden behind large glasses that she squinted through. She was short, very short, and it made Lance wonder how old she was, because, surely, she wasn't old enough to sign her life away to the Galaxy Garrison?

"Well, welcome to the team, Gunderson. I'm Lance, your fighter pilot." He said brightly despite his thoughts, holding his hand out like other humans do, not that she took it, but he didn't really notice, because he was more focused on something else.

Her pure Green quintessence.

It was strange, to know that not only did he have pure Blue, Hunk to have pure Yellow and for dropout to have pure Red. The chances of that happening, no, the chances of him even meeting another pure core was very unlikely. But here he was, looking at the third person he had met in his life, in the pastyear, with a pure core.

What were the chances of that happening.

(What were the chances of it happening, and for those colours to be those of Voltron?)

"Hey, I'm Hunk." Hunk said, his signature smiling filling his face, his Yellow core flaring in response to meeting another pure core.

There was no response from the younger child (because she was definitely not their age).

"We got a lot of great times ahead, so we should probably start bonding now. What do you say we sneak out of campus-" Lance started, but was cut off by the smaller of the three.

"Sorry, I don't have time to mess around with you guys. See you in the simulator." She muttered before waving them off and walking off towards the male dorms, her quintessence flaring in annoyance, not at Lance exactly, but at the idea of a distraction. Lance frowned as he watched her walk away, feeling as if something was missing.

"What's her problem?" He asked aloud as he turned back towards the board, looking for Pidge's name again to look at her stats, because he doesn't remember her being at the Garrison at the beginning of the year, making him wonder if she was one of the newbies to replace those who dropped out over the Christmas break.

"Her? Pidge is a boy man." Hunk replied to his question, though not really with an answer to it. Looking down the corridor that girl wondered down, he wondered who she was trying to trick with her poor disguise of a boy.

Was that a human thing that he didn't know about?

It was after the third failed simulator that he thought that, maybe, just maybe, he should put some effort into trying to figure out what her problem was exactly, because she obviously wasn't getting to the solution as fast as she wanted to, and now it was seriously affecting his chances of actually going to space, just as Hunk's travel sickness was (though this problem seemed to be much more solvable than Pidge's, if he was going to be honest).

It's okay, though, he still had time.

Not as much time as he was led to believe, but there was still time, at least, enough time to start saying goodbye.


	9. May - Blue

It took Lance only a single simulator session with Commander Iverson with his new 'team' (and _that_ was putting it nicely) before he became to dread them.

He just, didn't get it. He didn't understand how the mechanics worked, despite _years_ of building up this sort of knowledge, of preparing for the moment that he would start flying the weird, clunky machines that the backwater and underdeveloped species built. No matter the buttons he pressed, the switches he flicked or the direction he pushed the ship, the hunk of metal just didn't listen to him.

Maybe it was because he wasn't human, and thus couldn't think the same way that they did, meaning that he physically could not fly the same way that they did. The problem way, since they didn't think to make their ships accessible for other species, it made him have to work his absolute hardest just to get the thing off the ground, let along to space, then a different planet, then to land on said planet.

And that was just the piloting alone. Forget about the actual 'missions' and their 'objectives' and the things that randomly broke for Hunk to have to fix mid-flight and all the codes that Pidge had to go through with all his (her) mutinous comments.

Though, it was nice knowing that he wasn't the only one in his group who dreaded them. However, Lance knew that Hunk's reasoning for disliking the new lesson on their timetable for this semester, as while the guy way alright in cars, he just couldn't do flying.

( _"Dude, how is this even possible?"_

" _Dunno, maybe it's just you flying?"_

" _Maybe- Hey! That's not funny man, I have you know that I am excellent pilot!"_

" _Sure. Whatever you say."_ )

Huffing, he threw his arms away from the controls, watching the screen flash 'Simulation Failed', as if taunting his inability to fly, while noting that the doors has opened, and Iverson commanded them to leave. Frustrated, Lance followed his team mates, and stood at attention to listen to Iverson complain about their inability to complete a mission, their failures as a team and how much better Kogane would have been.

For a guy that ordered Kogane to get lost, he did seem to be pretty hung up about him.

(Thus, the start of the rumour that Iverson is actually a paedophile, one of Lance's proudest moments during his rather short stay at the Galaxy Garrison.)

After Iverson was done complaining, they were free to go to their next lessons. Hunk has an advance engineer course, something that was covering frequencies, while Lance had a free, which left the dorm all to himself, a rare occurrence due to the new, class heavy timetable he had, which only proved the fact that Iverson hated him, despite Hunk's disagreements.

Lance let out a sigh when he sat down at his desk and opened up a textbook with the intention of trying to see what he went wrong during the simulation, but quickly gave up when he realised he had been staring at the same page for ten minutes rather than reading it.

Ugh.

Standing up, he rubbed his face, his hands trailing to he back of his head as he began to massage the knots that had been building up in his neck that had been the cause of many headache recently. Or, what he tells Hunk have been the cause of many headaches recently, and began to pace around the empty room.

The real cause for the headaches was the weird feeling that he had gotten during his entire time at the Garrison, because, if before it was staring, then now it was gazing holes into the back of his neck with its curiosity, almost as if it begging to dig around his head and seek answers for its questions.

Lance froze in the middle of the room, his hands holding his neck as he felt the stare move, as if it was agreeing with his thought of wanting to go through his head, then began it's nudging again, harder now that Lance had realised what it wanted.

His first thought was to freak out. To build up a mind wall so tall not even a Galra could see over it if it jumped to stop the intruder from looking in. To run over to the bedside table that held his vibrating phone and call someone from his family, anyone really, to get answers to his questions as to who or what was asking for information from him and why they wanted it from him and what to do in the current situation.

This, however, was stupid. They wouldn't know what to do, they know less about the mind arts than him. He was their expert in Blue quintessence, and there was no way that he was going to run back to them because someone wanted to see what his noggin looked like.

So, his second thought was to nudge back, twice as hard.

(Hindsight told him that it was probably the most stupid thing he had ever done in his life, and that includes wiping someone's memories, but, just like back then, he doesn't regret doing what he was about to do.)

Walking over to his vibrating phone, he turned it onto the flight mode, least the spamming from his family interrupted him, and grabbed some headphones, putting on some calm sounds of rain he had downloaded, and sat down on his bed, his back to the wall and lightly placed the headphones on his head, his fingers ghosting over the reappearing knots in his neck.

Slowing, he softly inhaled air, listening to the pitter patter of rain in his headphones and used them to time how long to hold his breath, then calmly breathed out, feeling his pulse slow down and his mind go blank, the nudging becoming a soft prodding as he let the mysterious figure in.

After all, he had the most control of his mindscape out of his entire family.

* * *

 _Opening his eyes, Lance smiled nostalgically as the sight of Cuba's sugar white beach greeted him, the sand fine under his feet and the deep blue, almost black, sky was folded out above him with not a cloud in sight, leaving the Milky Way to be seen and admired by all, the stars twinkling their own little patterns, begging for his attention._

 _The sea was currently calm with a tide rolling in, each wave coming closer and closer to where Lance's bare feet stood in the white powder, reflecting the anxieties that had been gnawing away at his mind recently, threatening to overwhelm and drown him in despair._

 _It was honestly a good thing that he knew how to swim, and have someone like Hunk to watch his back too._

 _Lance sat down on the sand and crossed his legs underneath him while regulating his breathing still. He placed his hands lightly onto his knees to act as an anchor as he began to take deeper breaths, the nudging in the back of his mind much more obvious but less insistent than before, as if already know that Lance was going to let him in, despite how badly this end up._

 _Was there ever anything good about having something rifle through your brain after trying to get in for months on end?_

 _Inhaling sharply after a particular strong poke from the mysterious force, Lance started to build walls around the most private and most important memories, the ones where he was learning quintessence, where he learned all there was to know about space and Alteans and Galrans and their languages and customs, the ones where he learned about the Blade and the war and the Lions that they protect. The memories he held dear, where he was with Mama or Abuela or his sisters, long before the Garrison was a thought in his mind. The times he regretted, like when Papa died and the funeral they held with an empty casket, or when Catharyne, covered in bruises, brought her girlfriend home for the one and only time._

 _Slowly, Lance began to hide his life away behind carefully constructed walls, hopefully strong enough to stop the person from seeing what lied behind and what secrets were hidden, leaving only his school life, from elementary to the Garrison free to view._

 _And, it seemed, that the person doing the nudging only wanted to see the more resent memories, because as soon as Lance let them in, they didn't target what was hidden behind the walls, but rather what was in front of them, devouring the memories that the Altean had offered up. Before his eyes, he saw flashes of the past nine months, of meeting Hunk for the first time, to bumping into Keith in a busy corridor From listening to the rumours about Captain Shirogane, to wondering about all the mysteries that Pidge hid almost as well as he hide his own._

 _It was beast hungry for knowledge, accepting what Lance had given it, completely ignoring his time in Cuba, brushing it off like dirt on their nicely groomed coat, making him wonder what he held that it wanted, for it seemed that it was using Lance as its eyes rather than even taking his knowledge, confusing him even more._

 _A blink later, and Lance was gone from his memories of the last nine months, gone from the sugar white beach in Cuba that acted as his main mindscape._

 _Instead he was in what he thought to be a normal wide cave that held a small water fall, the trickling of water filling the cavern, making it sound much more larger than it actually was. Except, unlike normal caves, the walls, the floor and even the ceiling of the cave were filled with old Altean inscriptions that glowed the same light blue that he had seen during his time on the cliff in Utah, lighting the entire room with its peaceful glow._

 _Slowly turning around, he followed the carvings, the way that they described what Altea once was, and its fall, showing the reader in which the Lions of Voltron tried to save Daibazaal from the rift but failed, leaving their leader for dead, leaving he and his wife possessed by monsters of another reality._

 _Lance stopped turning, his breath suddenly gone, when he came into eye contact with the Blue Lion, Guardian Spirit of Water, Wielder of Blue Quintessence and serving as the right leg of Voltron._

 _Lance could only blink as the Lion's eyes glistened yellow as it connected with his own quintessence, filling him with a sense of power that he had never felt before, in a way that made him wonder how he had been able to live a life of half, live a life without the Blue Lion by his side to help guide him._

 _In front of Lance was the Blue Lion of Voltron, who had slumbered for 10'000 years, quietly awaiting her Paladin._

 _In front of Lance was the very reason why his family were here, in a backwater solar system on the very edge of the known universe._

 _In front of the Blue Lion, was the first Blue Paladin of Voltron she had chosen in 10'000 years. His job would to lead the rest of Voltron, when he gets them together like she had seen, forward towards their goal. It is her Paladin that takes the first step as the right leg, and is the very heart of Voltron itself._

 _Yes. She had chosen her new Paladin well, and he had chosen the rest of Voltron well too._

* * *

Throwing himself forward, Lance ripped his headphones off his ears, the sound of the rain's pitter patter disappearing instantly, leaving him to what should have been a silent room but was instead fill with the quiet purrs of a cat.

Throwing his phone onto his bedside table, he quickly stood up and went towards the window and opened it, thrusting his entire upper body out of it to feel the breeze though his hair and to help him clear his mind of what he had just witnessed, of what he had just done.

Pulling out the white crystal, he fiddled with it, flipping it between his fingers as the quintessence inside began to calm his flailed nerves

His family were going to kill him.

(It was then on that he left his phone on the bedside table to vibrate, not even looking at the messages that they were sending in fear that they knew what he had done, how he had endangered them all.)

(He was worried about the summer, what was he going to do when it was time to go home.)

(Maybe Blue would let him hang out with her. She seemed nice.)

* * *

Hunk sighed as he watched his friend walk off to the dorms, knowing that the failed sim and Iverson had got to him. Again. Not that he blamed Lance, of course, they all had their parts to play with flying a ship, especially something as sophisticated and complex as a fighter ship. However, Hunk couldn't feel that something was missing every time that they piloted it, as if there was something that stopped them from properly functioning as a team. No offence to Lance, but he really wasn't the best leader, he joked too much and tried to calm everyone down too much, meaning that they were underprepared to face the situation in the sims. The constant clashing with Pidge did not help, as while banter was banter, it really did not make the situations they found themselves in any better.

Maybe, given time, Lance could be a good, no, a great leader, but now wasn't that time, as much as Hunk hated to say it.

"What's up with him?" Looking down, Hunk noted Pidge also watching his best friend walk off.

He had yet to come to a proper judgement of Pidge, for it still felt that he was hiding something from everyone, not that was wrong or anything, as Lance had that feeling too. The difference between the two were the fact that Pidge's was much more obvious, his was much more immediate, more in your face, and he was worse than Lance at hiding the fact that he was carrying heavy secrets on his shoulders.

It reminds him of a month ago, when they first met him, and Lance misgendered him, and it make him wonder if that little fact reviled anything from the pair of them.

"Well, he doesn't take failure too well, as he's under the impression everything he does must go right first try, or something bad will happen." Hunk replied, looking down the empty corridor that Lance had once been.

"That's not what I mean." Pidge mutters, before walking off in a different direction, shifting his bag over his shoulder and rubbing it in a way to suggest that he was holding something heavy in it.

Sighing again, Hunk began to walk off in a third direction, towards the workroom, wanting to turn his mind towards the machine they were currently building, but his thoughts stayed stubbornly on his teammates, and the wonder of when they were going to come clean about what they're hiding.

* * *

 **A.N. What is this, a second update in a week. Well, the next chapter I upload for this story will be it's last as that will be the wrap of the arc as well as Lance's time in the Garrison. The next arc is called Yellow, so keep an eye out for that (though I will post it on here when I upload it so you guys know when it's out). Until then, my Tumblr is Skiewrites if you guys are desperate for spoilers and my requests are open, so if there's something you want to see (no smut please), just drop a message!**


	10. June - Yellow

_Lance was sixteen when he got his acceptance letter for the Galaxy Garrison._

 _He had finally finished school,. He was done with learning about all the useless subjects. He had gotten alright grades, meaning that he barely scraped a pass, in them, but he also got good enough_ _grades in PE, Physics and Maths to join the Galaxy Garrison, a long-time dream of his, ever since learning that they weren't from this planet, ever since learning that there were other aliens that had destroyed his previous planet and had murdered most of his species, with the rest working for the empire._

 _Naturally, he never told anyone._

 _And look how well that turned out._

* * *

The flashing words that told him that they had failed a simulation, again, were beginning to annoy Lance, just a little.

"Roll out, donkeys! Well let's see if we can't use this complete failure as a lesson for the rest of you students. Can anyone point out the mistakes these three so-called cadets made in the simulator?" Huffing, Lance lead his team out of the simulator to stand at attention in front of the class, again, while Iverson nit-picked at their mistakes, their inability to perform individuality as well as their incapability to work together as a team, going on to say that their mistakes were the same as the ones that the men on the Kerberos Mission made.

Of course, he just had to bring up the failed mission in front of Pidge, who was weirdly passionate about what happened, or at the very least, finding out what happened, if her flaring quintessence said anything about it.

The sooner he passed this class, and therefore stopped having to do these stupid human based simulations, the better.

"What did you say?" Lance went over to cover Pidge's mouth with his hand, muffling the protests that came out of her mouth, trying to make sure that Iverson had less reason to punish them.

"Sorry sir. I think he hit his head when he fell out of his chair. But, point taken." He internally winces at the intentional misgendering, feeling the way that Pidge's quintessence wants to argue against it, but can't because of… something. He wasn't about to route into her head to find out of course, that wouldn't be right, but, it would be nice to know why she thought that pretending to be a boy was the way to go about getting her answers.

Ah, the mysteries that humans hid themselves under.

Lance zoned out as he listened to Iverson drone on about how Kogane would be so much better if he were here instead of being kicked out, and how he shouldn't follow in his footsteps, and instead turned his thoughts to the Blue Lion, who won't leave him alone, at all.

At first, it was nice to hear a constant purr in the background, comforting to get random thoughts when he was feeling low after a bad test or a session with Iverson. But, now, she kept showing him his own memories of the humans that he had met in the last months, or even just knew of when it came to Captain Shirogane, and insisted that they stay at the forefront of his mind, bringing them back up when he was supposed to be doing something, like studying for a test, or flying a simulation.

He wondered what she was trying to tell him.

(That was a lie, he knew what she was going on about, it wasn't a coincidence that they had pure quintessence cores like him, but he wasn't ready to accept it. He couldn't find it in himself to be surprised, but he's not ready, none of them were, really.)

(It didn't matter, though. They still had time.)

"C'mon man, lets go back to the dorms, yeah?" Hunk smiled and led the way, expecting Lance to follow and catch up behind him, which he did, smiling and nodding along to whatever Hunk was saying, however, he was still lost in thought.

He blamed it entirely on the Blue Lion, and the way that she demanded his attention like a child trying to impress their parent, which then caused her to growl at him through their new bond, but, he knew that some of that attention was directed to the buzzing phone he leaves on his desk, charged but unchecked.

As soon as they entered the dorm, Lance quickly went from the flight suit, mandatory to wear during simulations to help zone you (it really didn't) and back into normal jeans and a bomber jacket, as they didn't have any other lessons for the day, his phone suspiciously silent. Sighing, he laid out on his bed, stretching his limbs as he tried to relax and not think about how he was going to fail, meaning that he'll have to go back to Cuba empty handed, to a family who wouldn't mind him failing if it meant that he stayed on Earth and didn't leave them. He took a deep breath and slowly released, as if he was starting a meditating session like Abuela taught him, in hopes to try and breath the stress out of his body, closing his eyes to limit the stimulations on his body, calming his breathing, calming his min-

 _pleaseGalraVoltroncomingmyPaladincollectpleaseGalraVoltroncomingmyPaladincollect_

Lance sat up at the intruding thoughts, gasping at the Blue Lion's intruding and broken thoughts that she was practically shoving into his mind, making it hard to think of anything else. He could he Hunk ask him a question in the background, but the words didn't reach his mind for him to comprehend, instead, the cries of the Blue Lion made his ears ring and the revelations made it almost impossible to breath.

The Galra were here. They were here for the Blue Lion, they had found the Blue Lion and the Blue Lion wants to form Voltron with a bunch of humans.

He could almost see already how wrong this was going to go.

"Lance, are you alright?" Blinking Lance turned towards his friend, feeling the way that Hunk's quintessence seemed to be reaching out to something, but it wasn't sure what it was supposed to be grabbing.

"Hm, yeah, I'm fine. I just had the perfect idea to get the three of us to bond as a team!" Lance stated as he jumped of his bed and picked up a backpack, and started to pack the things that you would usually pack if you were going to sneak off the site to go to town, and was able to put a couple of things of things that one should pack if they were going to sneak off site to leave the current galaxy they were in, like a change of clothes, his stash of sweets (because he doubted that they'll have any Fruit Pastels in space) and only some of his face care creams.

"And what exactly is that plan?" Hunk asked, warily eyeing his actions, thought he was taking no mind of what he was packing. As much as lance wanted to get his friend to pack as well, Lance doubted that Hunk would currently believe him if he tried to tell him that he was going to be a pilot to a giant space robot in the shape of a lion, because it really was one of those 'seeing is believing' situations.

But, was it really fair on him to drag him towards the Blue Lion, when he didn't know where she laid nor where two of the Paladin's were. He didn't even know who was the Black Paladin! He knew about Yellow, Green and Red because of Hunk's, Pidge's and Keith's pure quintessence cores, but he didn't even know where Keith had gone after he was kicked out. If he didn't have all the Paladins with him, then they wouldn't be able to get to the Blue Lion because of the enchantments, unless he tried to break them himself, which would take too long because by then the Galra would already be here.

His phone vibrated once, one new message, and it pulled him out of his thoughts.

At the end of the day, the Blue Lion considered him to be her Paladin. If the Galra were going to take her, well, they could take him too, and he'll just tell them that the humans were just that. Humans.

"We, my friend, are going to kidnap Pidge and hit the town, relax a bit, bond as a-" Lance smiled, hiding his concerns behind the grin on his face. Hunk, it seemed, had different plans.

"Nononono, Lance, you're not being serious? Sneaking of campus, that's just going to us in so much trouble." Hunk argued, and Lance laughed away his concerns.

There were bigger things to worry about than a punishment from Iverson.

"No it won't, because they're not going to catch us." Lance replied, smiling at Hunk's groan, and went to leave the room, only to hear his phone vibrate again. Turning around, he looked at it, taking in every scratch and dent it had gained over the years.

This would be the last time, much much sooner than he hoped.

Going over to his phone, he had pulled up Catharyne's number, ignoring all the texts above about how he didn't go home for the spring break, and began to type.

His family were all going to kill him if they ever saw him again.

* * *

BlueChild: _im going off to town for a while_

BlueChild: _theres some guys im meeting out there_

BlueChild: _theres going to be five of us going_

BlueChild: _ill be back_

BlueChild: _promice_

* * *

"We shouldn't be doing this."

Lance sighed as he turned back towards his best friend, who was now also in his normal clothes. He hated the fact that he was bringing Hunk with him, hated the fact that he was still lying to his friend and taking him away from his planet.

He didn't want to think of what would happen if he left him behind though.

"You heard Commander Iverson. We need to bond as a team. We're going to grab Pidge, hit the town, loosen up, meet some nice girls-"

"Okay, I'm-I'm just, I'm just saying this here right now, on the record: This is a Bad Idea." Lance rolled his eyes at Hunk's response, but couldn't help but agree with the statement.

"You know, for someone on a space exploration program, you don't have much sense of adventure." Lance muttered before turning down a corridor, making sure to look out for guards. So far, they had been lucky enough to miss them, only hearing their voices as they announced different corridors clear of anyone other than themselves. He went to move through the corridor now that he realised it was clear, only to watch as Pidge left her room with a backpack that seemed to be heaving with technology and scuttled down a corridor that he was sure lead to the rooftops. Off access to students.

"Where is he going?" Lance muttered as he went to follow her, wincing at the wrong pronoun and ignoring the protests Hunk seemed to have about following their team member. This wasn't part of the plan. The plan was to get the three of them to the Blue Lion and maybe explain to them what's going on, as he was sure they wouldn't be able to go much further than that without an explanation, and wonder where to go from there.

By the time the pair of them got to the rooftop, Pidge had already set up their computer and the other gear that Lance couldn't even begin to name. she was looking intensely at the screen with her headphones in.

"So, you come here to rock out?" Lance asked by lifting up her headphones just to make sure he3 was heard, only to jump back at her scream, laughing at her reaction. Pidge, however, didn't look so happy.

"McClain, you're lucky that I'm not killing you." She muttered, readjusting her headphones, frowning at what ever she heard, before muttering inaudiably, typing fast on her laptop that Hunk seemed very curious about the technology.

"Where did you get some of this stuff? I didn't think that the Garrison had some of this tech, let alone lets the students have it during down time." Hunk exclaimed jealously, trying to poke the unknown tech only for Pidge to yell at him for it.

"I have you know that I built this. With it, I can scan all the way to the edge of the solar system." There was pride in her voice, more so coming from her quintessence, almost as if she was trying to prove something to the other's in her team.

"All the way to Kerberos, maybe?" Maybe it was a bit out of order for Lance to say this, as she wasn't the only one hiding secrets, but he was curious. Pidge groaned, then yelled at Hunk again for almost touching her tech.

"You ballistic every time it's even mentioned! Look, if we're going to bond as a team, we can't have any secrets." Lance stated, and ignored the fact that he's not telling them his secret, that he can still hear the Blue Lion's demand to do something, even if he doesn't know what that something is and how to execute that something.

"Fine. The world as you know it is about to change. The Kerberos mission wasn't lost because of some malfunction or crew mistake like they said." None of this was world changing for Lance, but he hated its implications, and the nudges from the Blue Lion about Captain Shirogane seemed less weird and out of place now. The look of confusion on Hunk's face really told him that these humans were still not ready to learn what lied beyond their planet.

They didn't have much of a choice anymore.

"I've been scanning the system and picking up alien radio chatter…" Pidge trailed off, smirking at the look of disbelief from Hunk and the raised eyebrows from Lance. "They keep repeating one word: Voltron-"

Lance stomach dropped.

Did they know that the Blue Lion was on Earth? How? His family have been protecting the site of it's landing for centuries now. Something must have happened for them to suddenly start looking for it, especially since it's been 10'000 decapheobes since they were last seen.

Except, Zarkon was still alive, or well, alive as you could be for a 10'000 decapheob old dictator.

"It's a ship!" Lance was suddenly thrusted back into the conversation by Pidge's shouting, pointing towards a UFO that crashed into the desert not even a mile away from the Garrison. Fear gripped him, clawing at his sides and tearing them apart.

They were here already.

"That's not one of ours," he muttered, and vaguely listening to Pidge agree with him, and Hunk come to believe that aliens were a thing.

The Blue Lion had gone oddly silent, but there was an air around the bond that shows that she was pleased with what had just happened.

Lance didn't know what was pleasing about the Galra invading.

Lance lead the trio down the cliffs, his eyes never leaving the ship that had crashed landed rather spectacularly into the desert floor, uprising so much untouched dust and dirt that it was hard to find oxygen in the dirty air. He half-listened to Hunk mumble about going back to the barracks, his nervous quintessence not helping to calm his own as Lance's hand reached into his pocket to grasp the crystal, hoping that it will settle the unease.

"They've set up a camera in there, and I've managed to grab the feed. Look!" The screen filled with grainy images from inside the tent, with the most recognisable people in there being Commander Iverson and-

"That's Captain Shirogane." Lance muttered, and he could feel the smugness just roll off the Blue Lion like an incoming tide, something that he really wasn't in the mood to deal with that moment in time, as this proved that Paulyne was right (not that he was ever going to say that to her face of course). They watched in a confused wonder at the screen as Iverson interrogated him, then went to seduce him.

"We have to get him out." Pidge muttered, something that Lance agreed with. Shirogane was important to Voltron, if the Blue Lion was correct, and he wasn't about to insult the 10'000 decapheob old robotic beast that could squash him like a bug.

"How are going to do that? It's not like we're going to have something conveniently happen that will bring the attention away from the ship. So, what I suggest, id that we sneak back to the dorms, and pretend that this never happened." Hunk suggested, but as he turned to go back to the main building, several explosions went off simultaneously.

"Is that the aliens? Are they here? They got here so quick!" Lance felt his breathing stutter at Hunk's words, and he tried to calm his breathing. It was too fast, he wasn't prepared, and his family wasn't here to give him back up against any Galra, and he didn't know how to fight without quintessence, a undersight on his part.

"No, those explosions were a distraction, for him. The Garrison's headed towards the blast, but he's sneaking in from the other side." Lance looked towards where Pidge was pointing, and his eyebrows raised in shock when he felt a weak pulse of pure Red quintessence.

No quiznaking way was he going to save Shirogane, at least, not on his own.

(Voltron was about being a team form what the legends say, after all.)

He gave some lame excuse about being able to recognise Keith by his mullet as he scaled down the cliffs, the rest of the group following quickly after him, but he quickly lost them in his race to catch up with Kogane.

By the time he got there, Keith had already tried to lift Shirogane up so he could leave, but he was obviously struggling with the weight. Sighing, Lance went over to his other side, flinching when his hand came into contact with the robotic arm as what felt like ugly slime crawled down his neck and almost whispered sins into his ear. It was almost loud enough to drown out the feel of Shirogane's own core, a pulsing Black.

This is it. Voltron was here.

"Who the hell are you?" Lance stared at Kogane, who was glaring at him as if he wanted to burn two identical holes into his brain.

"Uh, the names Lance. I was in your classes before you decided to drop out." No response other than a blank face. Nice to know he was noticed. "You know what, never mind, let's just get out of here, yeah?"

They left the tent, and the five of them managed to fit onto some hoverbike that Keith was able to get hold of during his time away from the Garrison. With a little arguing and Keith throwing them off a cliff, they left the Garrison behind them, not even looking back.

Behind them was a buzzing phone and concerned families, but in front of them, Voltron awaited.

* * *

 _Lance was seventeen when he broke through the enchantments on the Blue Lion, falling through the floor with four other people, four humans who had pure quintessence cores like him, one of them he only met that day._

 _When he looked up to stare the Blue Lion in the eyes, to feel her quintessence enter his mind again in the most natural way and fill it with so many painful memories of the past, for her to tell him that he was_ 'her Paladin', _for some of his questions of the last year to be answered._

 _He was so grounded when his family finds out._

 _He was so glad that he had finally met Blue in person, met the reason why his family were on such a beautiful planet, met the person who was going to take him away._

 _He had left his phone to vibrate on his bedside table; he never got to say a proper goodbye._

* * *

 **A.N. This is the final chapter, as you can tell. The next story will be called Yellow, so look out for that!**


End file.
